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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




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BROKEN THOUGHTS 



BROKEN THOUGHTS 



AND 



OTHER POEMS 



G. L. B. 



Zytinrv 






NEW YORK 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

182 FIFTH AVENUE 
1 88l. 



-y&£ 



Copyright, 1S81. by G. P. Putnam's Sows. 



RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 

TO 

J. A. O. AND J. S. M. W. 
OF MY HOST OF FRIENDS THE LAST AND BEST, 

WHO 

Friends in joy, friends in wo, 
Friends once are always so. 



PREFACE. 



I WRITE because I write. I know no other rea- 
son. But write as I may, of purpose or purposeless, 
why print? Why, perforce, appear to a great pub- 
lic, unknown, unannounced, and without calling? 
Grim necessity speeds the arrow that quavers on 
the string of inclination. And so I print — offer 
my thoughts in all their crudity — without the prun- 
ing hook of criticism — without the blotting track 
of revision ; bad reasoning and, mayhap, useless 
trouble, but, so I print. And thou dreaded, gen- 
erous, lenient public, you have my lines. If not 
wanted, return them, or, perchance, you discover 
some merit, and point it out, you will have my 
thanks. And again, if you subtract their faults, and 
count them up, still you have my thanks. 

I slipped my thoughts as they came ; and as 
naught is remembered save that which is worthy of 
remembrance, and naught is worthy of remembrance 
save that which will benefit by remembering, I shall 
regret it if they are to be read to-day and forgotten 
to-morrow. If, however, there be one shall live until 
the day after, I am satisfied. 

B. 
Nov. 1880. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 
Broken Thoughts i 

To My Muse 89 

The Double Stroke • 91 

Love's Everywhere 92 

Friendship and Love 93 

Woes and Foes of the Clergy 94 

The Soul and the Kiss 95 

If 96 

My Boys 98 

The Dance 99 

The Hawthorn Grove 101 

The Clock upon the Wall 105 

Though Lips may Meet 107 

Poets 108 

The First Word m 

To Lotta n 3 

Much" I Marvel n 5 



Epitaph . 



117 



She's a World of Love to Me x , ,s 

The Dismissal I20 



BROKEN THOUGHTS, 



Another and another day 
In the past has passed away, 
And I am left a one mile more 
On the road to the unknown shore. 
Another and another hour 
Plucks a leaf from wasting flower, 
That in the fair young days of life 
Blooming wreathes the sickles knife. 
Another and another dot 
Of time has known a moment's lot 
Of moans and wailings of the earth, 
A tomb to find within its birth. 
And what am I the better for 
The day, the moment, or the hour? 
Tell me, my thoughts — tell me, my pen, 
Am I the better for knowing them ? 
No drop of blood that pulses o'er 
This frame, that time has beaten sore, 
Can deeper dye the flush of red 
That warmly o'er my features spread, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

When I review in long array, 

The moments lost and thrown away, 

That I have seen, that I have known, 

In this small life I call my own. 

So small in good I cannot tell — 

If I were gone it were not well ; 

Yet I recall some moments past, 

And shudder had they been my last, 

And memory known me only as 

A something that I never was ; 

For men but paint what men may know, 

And seldom reach that deeper flow 

That courses through the human heart 

In secret from its outer part. 

And so I lift the sword of mind 

To scratch a name on eyeballs blind ; 

And so I write that none may say, 

He lived his moment and his day 

Without revealing from his heart 

Its coursings 'neath its outer part ; 

That they who'd have me only as 

A something that I never was, 

May know for whom they squeeze their lungs, 

Whose name runs idling 'cross their tongues, 

Bears a heart that is all too good 

To be by them half understood. 

But cease this blaming — praising self, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

And turn to write of life and health, 
And the many crooks and turns of breath 
When Birth turns strolling out for Death. 
Begin at the end of all things known, 
Eternity and the grave white stone. 

ETERNITY. 

O Death, thou art a stranger thing, 

Than all of life can be, 
Enfolding in thy one deep sting 

The key to all eternity. 

Who would not give a life to know, 
What all may know by thee, 

And change a world of dross and show 
For one of vast eternity. 

Who has a month, a year to live, 

Is better far than he 
Who has a century yet to give, 

To doubting there's eternity. 

Then drown all grief in waves of mirth, 

And faster sail the sea, 
As longer grows the path to birth, 

And nearer looms eternity. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS.. 

O Death, thou art a stranger thing 

Than all of life can be ; 
Who would not give their life to know 

What all may know by thee ? 

Death ever shoots with random shot, 

Nor great or low are e'er forgot ; 

But all are caught on the iron wing, 

That knows not peasant from the king; 

All must drink the withering breath, 

That grants the soul its body's death, 

And ne'er such draught to man were given — 

Man ne'er would dream the dream of heaven- 

A heaven though painted in varied hues, 

As there are sects with various views, 

That doubts may rise with every sun, 

If there in sooth be even one. 

But if there is, or if there's not, 

None will deny this truth, I wot, 

That had this world no Christian creed, 

This world were near a hell indeed. 

" I have a heaven," is a churchman's shout, 

" And all but me are left without." 

" There is no heaven,'' the sceptic cries, 

" There is one heaven," echo replies. 

Look around you, above, below, 

Written in white on banks of snow; 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

View the letters o'ertraced in gold 
That spell out heaven on starry fold. 
Out on the earth in emerald dressed, 
Look for the name on verdured breast; 
Out on the sea — out on the air — 
Out of the here into the everywhere — 
View the letters in green and gold 
That stamp a heaven on every soul ; 
To gain that heaven the only path, 
Is marked by the tomb and epitaph, 
Where pass the myriad-minded throng, 
Through gate so narrow, deep, and long — 
All latched and hinged with mounded sod, 
The first, last, and only way to God, 
That all must stop and question why, 
If not for heaven why should we die ? 
Death ever shoots with random shot, 
Nor you, nor I will be forgot. 
His scythe we'll meet with swath of clay 
To-morrow or perchance to-day, 
We know not when and reck not how, 
If not the all-absorbing now. 
Alas ! for a morrow's little span, 
Death and man simultaneous plan ; 
Forth-stepping on to-morrow's floor, 
Man answereth summons at the door, 
Where tugging at the bell of life, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Death presents the separating knife. 
Say, reader, hast thou ever thought 
The life that's long is all too short 
For man to draw the wealth of breath, 
That man would draw before his death ? 
Echo the leaves that yearly fall ? 
Or dying friends a warning call? 
Or seest thou in the corner gloom 
The spectre form that holds thy doom ? 
Stands he now at thy elbow near 
Whispering, " Mortal I am here? " 
Or comes he in yon rushing blast — 
Heard'st thou his sickle brushing past ? 
On he passes with ice-cold tramp, 
To measure the oil left in thy lamp. 
Then out from the dust withdraw thy face, 
For missed thou art by scarce a space ; 
Still the beating within thy heart, 
Calm the nerves that trembling start, 
Pluck the ague from out thy bones 
And pluck the hush from out thy tones, 
Pick thy courage from off thy toes, 
Fear nothing now but mortal foes. 
But why this abject fear of death ? 
Is there no hope beyond the breath ? 
" Dark all beyond the dusky curtain, 
Death and death alone is certain." 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 7 

Thus saith a voice that's foreign to me 
From out the depths of its misery. 
My Muse sends down an ode to my tongue, 
And here let her answering words be sung. 

ODE. 

And is this — is this the moment, the last of life, 
Is it to this mild end the ever-dreaded strife 
With thee, O Death, against the body, breath and 
mind, 
Extracts the kernel from its human rind ? 

conqueror I triumph soon on thy scutcheon will be, 
My soul revealed and revealing eternity ; 

This varied body '11 be back to its earth consigned, 
This last gasp resume its flight in the wind. 

Must thou, then, O Death — to swell thy ever-swell- 
ing roll, 
Must — must thou strike the substance from around 

my soul ? 
Ah, that agony, delicious thrill, ecstatic sting — 
My soul, or thou, or both are triumphing; 

Now, I break — recedes, the body — it is not me, 

1 rise, I rise — is this the soul I seem to be ? 



8 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

O Death ! retained thy grandeur, vanished thy ter- 
rors, 
Thy dread, the greatest of life's great errors. 

And still we cavil, halt, and pause, 

O'er this, the highest of Nature's laws ; 

While the soul is hid from mortal eye, 

The soul will doubt its immortality. 

A shade — a doubt, we cannot quell, 

As our sires believed and doubted hell ; 

And yet — not so — the doubt is less, 

And the hope has far more eagerness, 

Than ever dread of brimstone lake 

Could make our father's tombstones quake. 

Time was when this sulphuric cry, 

Was species of church property, 

A scourge to punish every sin, 

And whip the frightened sinners in. 

So close they hugged the specious wrong, 

Ne'er protest swelled a poet's song, 

And e'en to doubt in plainest prose, 

Brought down all the churches woes ; 

But now, methinks, the nine may sing, 

Without on tenets trespassing, 

Of wrong to bring a child to dwell 

'Pon warmth that's stored for him in hell ; 

Albeit scarce ten summers past 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Since this devil from the fold was cast, 

This stumbling stone came forth to be, 

Backward rolled in obscurity. 

Nor find we now in all the land 

A preacher to a Christian band, 

Who teaches not, hell of scripture text, 

Is conscience nailed to memory's crucifix ; 

That sin to an all remembering soul, 

Is as fires eternal roll 

Across the million nerved frame. 

Plunged in one ceaseless bath of flame. 

Hence a future Roger's tenderness, 

May sing Pleasures of Forgetfulness ; 

Or add to Hope in Campbell's rhyme, 

Oblivion to terrestial time. 

'Tis strange six thousand years should pave 

A path so short to Satan's grave, 

Or truth should have so long a task 

Before in reason all would ask, 

That when this body's thrown off here, 

What from fire has the soul to fear ? 

But the soul — while none may see, 

Why doubt we its reality. 

There's not among the sages gray, 

One who himself hath seen the ray 

Made tangible to the human sight, 

That came with God's " Let there be light." 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

If it has substance, 'tis of a kind, 
The eyes can never teach the mind. 
And thou, oh, all important man, 
Describe or doubt it if ye can ; 
Go, tell the waif who cannot see 
And know thy mind's own poverty. 
Again an ode swims o'er my soul, 
And thus its questioning fancies roll. 



ODE. 

thou ether, or mind, or soul, 
Thou vapor from a marrowed bowl, 
Whate'er thy name or erst thou art, 

At once the source and end of thought, 

1 bow my head and bend my knee 
In reverence O my soul, to thee. 

Or spirit, or mind, or soul in three, 
I wist are one in eternity, 
And are but names by mortals given 
To earth's one star, that reaches heaven. 
Thou one great comprehensive spark, 
What systems revolve within thy dark ; 
Though spaceless e'en thyself in space, 
Thyself can'st worlds on worlds embrace. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. II 

Thou came from where, or when, or whence, 

Is wrapt in mystery black and dense, 

That lives not mind itself can tell 

Why here, or where before it dwell. 

When first thy shell its breath hath drank, 

Thou comest with it of blankness blank, 

A sheet whereon impressions fall, 

And, sponge-like, yet hath room for all. 

When in infant casket rolled, 

Nor sense, nor aught dost thou unfold 

Whereon to build a prophecy, 

Of what thou art or ere wilt be. 

A thing at first of circumstances, 

At last of many idle chances, 

As oft by ancient prophets told, 

And still by moderns still foretold, 

As to different heavens by different creeds, 

Thou art assigned as suits their needs. 

E'en blank as is thy sheet at first, 
Soon spots upon its whiteness burst — 
Thin streakings are that scarce distinct, 
Faint lines upon thy surface think, 
And thou doth be a something more 
Each day than on the day before. 
Absorbing in thy child-form cased, 
Of good or bad as is the taste 



12 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Of those with whom thy lot is cast, 
And drinking drink, until the last. 



In time thou hast a full-grown cell, 
Like clapper hung within the bell, 
An arm unseen to strike the toll 
The bronze is but the sounding bowl; 
In sooth a lost a useless thing, 
Forever stilled its triumphing, 
When thou hast worn or broke the stop 
That binds thee to its vaulted top. 

And when thy moving prison stalks 
With thee through varied human walks, 
Thou find'st that other things like thee, 
As wandering, seek thy company. 
And some are high and some are low, 
'Cording to what hath made them so, 
And only those that have embraced 
Similar views, can please thy taste. 
Perchance thou wilt not mix with one, 
Who lower vices dwells upon, 
And art equally out of place 
With one who tempts a swifter pace. 
Thrown with either, e'en 'gainst thy will- 
Thou soon partake their good or ill, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 1 3 

And cease to love that other mind, 
That once thy every sense could bind. 

I sleep to dream, I wake to think, 
The gurgling stream, the shelving brink, 
That must be thine, or soon or late 
Who restless in thy cagings wait. 
I waking think, I sleeping dream, 
Deep pondering o'er no idle theme, 
But how, and where, and what thou art, 
Who hast a vault within my heart, 
Where all thy rarer musings lie, 
Hidden from reason's censuring eye. 

When chance, or age, or illness come, 
Break thou the bars of thy shelly comb, 
And laugh in glee and laugh in mirth, 
And spurn thy captor back to earth, 
Where soon its crumbled dust will be 
A chrysalis new, for soul like thee. 

Know'st now thy immortality? 

Thou strange intangibility ; 

What scenes, what clime, what world is thine? 

W 7 hat substance now thy forces bind ? 

Rolling now, thou ponderous ball of thought ; 

And rolling, hast thou the severance caught ? 



14 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

And add'st thou now to all before, 
Fresh knowledge of the victory o'er? 
But hold ! my soul's own questioner, 
These secrets ne'er were wrest from her. 

thou ether, thou mind, thou soul, 
Thou vapor from a marrowed bowl, 
Thou wrappings of a hope intense 
Where'er thy home before or hence, 

1 bow my head and bend my knee, 
In reverence, O my soul, to thee. 

Now, reached the boundary all unknown, 
Where life aye meets the funeral stone, 
A hush falls o'er my tuneful lay, 
Too dark the night— too bright the day. 
I fain would sweep the lyre along 
The march of soul, the clouds among, 
But oh, too deep for human tongue, 
The rest by angels must be sung ; 
Climbing the east in clouds of breath, 
At eve to set in the sea of death, 
Spanning its arc of elliptic swell 
Life on the earth has come to dwell ; 
Feeble at first, feeble at last, 
Full strength all in the centre cast, 
A meteor sun in splendor bright, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. I 5 

Toned by sinking and approaching night. 

O life thou art more fit for prose 

All pregnant with thy various woes, 

Than in thy changeful garb to shine 

Through vagaries of the tuneful nine. 

All in darkness its brightness bound, 

The ancients dreamed the sun went down ; 

But later rose from science spring 

The true course of its triumphing — 

Onward, onward, in a self-lit way, 

Wrapt in the folds of an endless day, 

It sends its rays in gladness hurled, 

To light the other side of the world. 

Thus rises life in another sphere, 

From depths of gloomy setting here. 

And mortal wilt thou not attend, 

To words that tell of mortal end, 

But needs must haste in endless strife, 

To soil thy soul in spoiling life ; 

Nor heed that misery here below, 

Will value peace, that's yet to know. 

Must I, and all my brethren scorned 

Be by inattentive readers warned, 

To draw our pen o'er lighter verse, 

That ye may live to yourselves a curse ? 

Come want, come thrift, come curses praise — 

But, why rave I o'er unread lays ? 



1 6 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Perchance they'll meet with one who may 

Have groped a dark, a fevered way, 

Through all the varied odds and isms, 

Since Moses and the catechisms. 

And if, in sooth, he may not find, 

A balm of Gilead to his mind, 

Learn to respect each brother's view, 

And believe that he believes them true ; 

So short is life, that he who'd know, 

Must count his breathings come and go. 

Ah me! a breath may fan the flame, 

A breath may snuff it out again. 

O life, thou hast as many heads, 

As all the various quadrupeds 

That have roamed the world, since world it was, 

Or yet may roam to its awful pause. 

What wonder at a million creeds 

That spring to life like mushroom weeds, 

When thou dost seek untrampled paths 

In search of others' epitaphs ! 

For all within the forest green, 

Are damp and treacherous bogs between, 

Where round the oaks the ivies twine — 

A brilliant, coiling, poisonous vine — 

Softly wreathing in colors bright, 

The sturdy oak's three-centuried might. 

Thoughtless comes incautious youth, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. I? 

And pruning for a staff of truth, 
Receives a kiss from the ivy dew 
In frenzy spreading his system through, 
Poisoning every drop of blood, 
Corrupting all that erst was good, 
Till thrown afar is the oaken limb 
As having nursed a curse to him, 
And ever after reviles the tree, 
For what he deems its treachery. 
Poor foolish man ! doth life contain 
So much, that thou canst live in vain, 
And spend thy little gale of breath, 
That blows thee on from birth to death, 
In quibbling o'er the tail to the Y 
That ends thine own eternity ? 
The span so short from verge to verge, 
Let here be sung in mournful dirge. 



A MYTH. 

THOUGH ye breathe while ye breathe, or work while 

ye may, 
Though ye grieve when ye grieve, or laugh when ye 

play, 
As ye spin out the sands that came in at birth, 
Their numbers yet lessening in grief or in mirth 



1 8 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Enrolling days and months, and years in a roll — 
Life is but travail for the birth of the soul. 

E'en as now this line I write is not my last,* 

But the time, the time consumed — that time is past 

A line is but little, either here or there ; 

But the time, a drop of life — life, a drop of air, 

Little to be regarded, drop of a drop, 

Though mist collected '11 raise the ocean's top. 

Man from his earliest to his latest breath, 
Ever draws one constant dread and fear of death ; 
Alas ! his grave is dug the day he is born, 
And his cradle is rocked in its awful form, 
At best, he never steps a foot from its brim, 
At last, in dodging the scythe, he tumbles in. 

So sad and mournful have I grown, 
I scarce can think my lines my own, 
And feel that all my reader's here 
Will stop from choice, if not from fear. 
But leave we now the grave for a time, 
And turn to the Book of books divine. 
Nor friend of worth can claim to know 
A man or book without a foe ; 

* See Note i. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 1 9 

A Judas every man must find, 

And every book a sneering mind, 

Or come from the wheel a lotteried blank, 

Void of censure, praise, or rank ; 

Somewhere stamped on book or man, 

Should something be for man or book to damn. 

Scarce added to time are centuries ten, 

Since came there 'mong the races of men, 

An infant veiled in golden locks, 

Whose airy threads the silkworm mocks, 

A skin of velvet, shell-like hue, 

The rose and the lily mingled through, 

A brow that ne'er before had been, 

Stripped from gods to be worn by men ; 

Brought from love of the great sea king, 

For the island maid when slumbering, 

Conceived and born in a single night, 

It flashed on earth its meteoric light ; 

Growing in power with growing years 

Wakening a hundred rivals' fears, 

Whose anger poured in vials of wrath 

Along, across, and over its path, 

Inuring who a youth had grown, 

To conquests all before unknown. 

Strong and grand, in heroic skill, 

Learning alone, commanding will, 

Is of races — races king 



20 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

And not eternal conquering. 

Centuries into centuries flew, 

From youth the infant to manhood grew, 

Sending of sons and daughters forth, 

Peopling near one-fourth of the earth, 

Till the pride of nations now is won, 

For the race they're grafting themselves upon. 

The eye of the seer is given to me 

In dim approaching future to see, 

Where each and all are proud to be 

A twig on the Anglo-Saxon tree. 

A similar story may be told 

Of a book that's young when we are old ; 

Though through its track in the lapse of time, 

Scores of centuries spectres shine. 

Something the same in battle's fought, 

Something the same in progress wrought, 

And still the same in majestic might, 

Joined in an onward course of light. 

As ages swing on hinges gray, 

And I look on all we have to-day, 

Backward I throw a glance of pride, 

Where progress opened her portals wide, 

To all that gave the world a start, 

Backward I send a beating heart. 

Out of the dark of memory's verge, 

The Book has come o'er stormy surge, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 21 

Meeting with hate, and scorn and fear, 
As conquering ignorance year by year, 
'Thas come to be acknowledged by, 
And fought by the nineteenth century. 
O ye, who claim of reason's store, 
Doth that reason teach no more, 
Than, while ye cut the thistle down, 
To trample the wheat all under ground ? 
Destroying all your staff of life, 
To gain a bootless thistle strife — 
But break we now our thread of thought, 
As e'en our title says we ought, 
While we sing of Bible treason, 
Sinor f Bible versus reason. 



BIBLE vs. REASON. 



Whether 'tis divine or not, 

Right or wrong, false or true, 
Or partly right, partly wrong, 

Partly false or partly true ; 
Yet it is without alloy 

The sweetest balm of life, 
A cup for every joy, 

And a bowl for every strife. 



22 BROKEM THOUGHTS. 

Though all the world assail it, 

And tear out page by page, 
Though infidels revile it 

As unfit for reason's age ; 
Yet all the world remember 

That enlightment came with it, 
And where the one dissembler, 

Who feeleth not its spirit. 

And owe they not the light 

Which gives their reason scope, 
To the eighteen hundred battles 

Entwisting centuries rope ; 
And where their boasted reason 

To strike it on the way, 
If it ne'er had held the lamp 

That lights the brain to-day? 

Then do not twist distortion 

From out each crooked line, 
Condemning all the straight ones 

That through its covers shine ; 
For it was by what is right 

Within its ancient words, 
And not by what is wrong, 

It enreasoned human herds. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 23 

Though its pages be enmixed 

With doubt and contradiction, 
Though 'tis hard to choose betwixt 

The truth and aged fiction ; 
Yet it is without alloy, 

The sweetest balm of life, 
A cup for every joy, 

And a bowl for every strife. 

If reason can a shadow make — 
Which shadow-like must undertake 
An empty void with seeming vast, 
To ape the form from which 'tis cast — 
Then all our thunder's thrown away, 
In fighting a knight so shadowy. 
For highest reason the world has known, 
Has never away its Bible thrown, 
Trusting its truths of living light, 
Leaving the rest for fools to fight. 
E'en minds as well as forest streams, 
Must ever run in two extremes ; 
With some too fast, and some too slow, 
To a given point their various flow, 
Each bearing on a cargo free, 
Of many a special votary, 
Who laughs at those who do not take, 
The stream where sails his own mistake. 



24 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Some choose the stream of double length, 

A winding, wandering labyrinth, 

And blow their breath to fan them round 

The crooks that everywhere abound. 

While rushing waters suit the taste 

Of some, who, born in greatest haste, 

Wild shoot the rapids bursting foam, 

Shouting to hear the sober groan, 

Striking at last the wrecking stone, 

Go down in a whirlpool all their own. 

Again there runs, or seems to run, 

A stream o'erpatched with vilest scum, 

Where many move in loathsome filth, 

As if to creep to heaven by stealth, 

Contented with themselves the while, 

A lifetime gaining scarce a mile. 

From Father of Water's channel broad — 

Of all the stream's acknowledged god — 

To rill that leaps the mountain steep, 

All, all are seeking the oceans deep ; 

From fountains traced to final fall, 

We find one harbor welcomes all. 

And so the various human mind, 

In yet more various courses wind, 

Through all the intricate thoughts of man, 

To a heaven not one can understand. 

Somewhere between each far extreme. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

There flows an even placid stream, 

A current that will carry through 

All trusting to its amber hue. 

Flows there such through sacred pages, 

Flowincr down from distant acres ? 

Come, answer me, ye all who know, 

Through the Word, do the waters flow ? 

For many years I knew him not, 

Until he came to wildling spot, 

Where I had chosen to wield a life 

Of stormy, toilsome, business strife — 

(I left it, and my heart aches still, 

As ache it must, and ever will.) 

He came — a worn, an aged man, 

His life-sands far and nearly ran. 

It may have been a foolish whim, 

That I should learn to look for him, 

And marvel at his groundward cast 

Of view, as though there lay the past. 

Well I remember the tottering fall 

Of the old man's steps, and all 

That seemed to say, " I seek — I cannot find : 

All, all are gone, I am left behind." 

The palsied shake of the old gray head, 

As if 'twould catch a broken thread 

Of thought, far back in years 'twere dim, 

And yet were busy years to him. 



26 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

At first, I wondered how it was, 
His wandering years should come to us. 
Sure there was not in our village new, 
Aught that could please his aged view ; 
His must have been far different scene, 
Than shadeless, birdless, wildness green. 
I questioned if any knew the why 
This man should choose such place to die, 
And learned that he, in times far gone, 
Had known all that endears a home — 
A wife and children ; and now a son 
And he the last, and youngest one, 
Alone was left him — who scarce a man, 
Had the jostling race but just began, 
Where all men make a joyful start, 
To gain a fortune or a broken heart; 
Who seeking out our virgin land, 
Had his aged father brought ; and 
Although he had nor aught of wealth, 
Save willing hands and rosy health, 
He cheerful took the burdened weight, 
His sire's years, nor complained he that 
A burthen 'twas ; but with smiling face 
He cheered the old man's halting pace, 
Each care and each memory smoothed, 
And every aching hour soothed, 
With look, that told 'twas pleasure to, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 2J 

And reward enough, if smile it drew. 

honored father, O happy son, 
Where age and youth immingled run! 
When in time I ventured to break 
The silence, and acquaintance make, 

1 found a source of greater joy — 

If greater could be than such a boy — ■ 

The old man knew ; companion of 

His daily walks, the book whereof 

We sing ; true his may have been, 

A love as blind as reason when, 

'Tis blindest — yet he loved it with 

That simple faith, that summoneth 

Our admiration. He carried it to 

Each sick-bed that our village knew, 

And from it some sweet comfort drew, 

For each sad soul : no fairer scene, 

In all the world's strange shows I wean, 

Than this man — whose future e'en he, 

In the past could almost see — 

Bending o'er pale ones with quavering voice, 

Pleading that they in stream rejoice, 

Wherein erst he his peace had found : 

Hover angels all such scenes around, 

And fan their wings to sweep the air, 

Of derision from a scene so fair. 

When the good man's bones shall tired lay, 



28 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Their last long rest in the grave away, 
And his soul be freed from hut within, 
The heavens shall bend to receive it in. 
Methinks, a deathbed such as he, 
Will press in short futurity, 
Were dart to pierce a sceptic host, 
From Arctic to Antarctic coast ; 
Or faith like his be wrong, then might, 
Better the world to be wrong than right. 
But pause we now, though scarce desire, 
To leave a theme the gods inspire — 
To call the muse from halls above, 
Who best can sing this ag'd man's love, 
In words that though he might not tell, 
Yet such reverence in his soul did dwell. 

INVOCATION. 

Polyhymnia ! Come, mine sacred muse,. 
Pour thy sweetest incense o'er my soul ; 

That we this hour may use, 
Chanting an ode in our highest role. 
Come forth ! my muse ! no longer tarry, 

Pour down thy spirit now ; 
Pour all and all my soul may carry,' 
While deepest reverence bends my brow. 

Hush ! nearest voices low, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 29 



ODE. 



Thou noblest of noble books, 
Thou art to earth, heaven's direct descendant, 
Oh thou Bible ! With but thee as lone attendant, 
Virtue hath no fears. 



O, thou ocean of love, 
Written in heaven, by heavenly-gifted souls, 
Divinely, sadly traced, while angels held the scrolls, 
In God's own tears. 



Thou spirit's interpreter, 
Thou sweet and one translation from the angel 

tongue, 
I love thee. Thou art wisdom's grief, by music wrung 
From heaven's deepest bowl. 



Of God's boundless bequests, 
Thou art the greatest, thou art the richest payment, 
Thou art thought, breath, life, food, drink and rai- 
ment 
To the various soul. 



30 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

O thou beacon-house, 
Thou art ignorance scourge, thou art enlightment's 

light, 
Thou art of goodness good, thou art of Tightness 

right, 
Thou art divine. 

Again we sweep the sounding strings, 

A change again in answer rings : 

O life and death, and bibles, too, 

What are ye this great world unto ? 

'Thas seen ye come, 'thas seen ye go, 

Through summer's sun, and winter's snow, 

For ages past, and ages 'twill, 

Serenely gaze upon ye still. 

Birth carves a slice from off its loaf, 

Death cancels and returns them both ; 

Its dust that formed a king of yore, 

E'en now is thrown from barn-yard door, 

And yours or mine no distant day, 

Be wiped in mud from the foot away. 

Its sands and rocks, and seas and air, 

Forever turn a footstool where 

Millioned insects, of million colored wings, 

Rove as men ten million idea'd things. 

A whirling myth, a passing dream, 

A treacherous, changeful, whirlpool stream, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 3 1 

Where nothing's what at first 'twould seem, 

And sorrow's wedge all joys between ; 

Twirling that gnats and men may live, 

Nor gnats, nor men, of thanks can give ; 

For gnats cannot, and men will never 

Cease lauding of themselves forever. 

Ten billion orbs in orbits whirled, 

Yet man loud boasts of all the world ; 

If God can laugh, then laugh he must, 

Such fools should rise from animating dust. 

'Tis over strange that man should bear, 

Contention to a world so fair — 

So fair, that while forever rife 

With multitudinous instinct life, 

Nought was there to interfere, 

With all the pleasure breathing here, 

Till man brought that before unknown, 

Ambition on a tyrant's throne. 

Sweet heaven with all her godly charms, 

Then lay embraced in earth's fair arms. 

The flocks could nip the starting blades, 

That smoothly grassed their pasturing glades, 

Or sip the morning's balmy dew, 

Soft night had o'er the daisies threw ; 

Or if their thirst craved greater store, 

Regale their throats at pebbled shore, 

Of fountains, wandering, murmuring by. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Through Nature's vernal tapestry, 

With sportive lambkins o'er the green, 

Gamboling to enrich the scene. 

In circles round their dewy bed, 

The pregnant ewes on blossoms fed, 

And grassy sweets and tempting vines, 

The wild pea and the clover twines. 

The curly-horned and hardy rams, 

Grazed side by side their infant lambs, 

Or their snowy sides a prickling cheer, 

Received from isolated bramble near; 

The while fattening herds of heifer's feed 

Along the dew bespangled mead, 

And lowing bullocks rove among 

The peaceful quiet of the throng ; 

Till Sol's refulgent heightening beam, 

Makes welcome the adjacent screen, 

Where ivies, oaks, and hollies wreathe, 

Bowers that shady volumes breathe, 

Of fragrant coolness to the flocks, 

Of milk-white fleece and dusky ox. 

To cool their limbs that flies emboss, 

Deep in the poollet's silver gloss, 

The gentle heifers lave their sides, 

While from back to back the brown bird glides. 

And there beneath the broad arched trees, 

On mossy banks in scattered ease, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 33 

Like drifted snow in lumpy mounds, 

That here and there in spring abounds, 

Near one-half the curly fibered sheep, 

Reclining woo the feather-footed sleep ; 

Whiles others stand their hoofs awet, 

With shade-held dew of the violet, 

And chew the tooth-worn, never-conquered cud, 

Dumb nature's thanks to the Eternal Good. 

Enwrapped in tender lambkin tongues, 

The milky stream, delicious runs, 

Or frisky calves in buntings tell, 

The raptures drawn from creamy well. 

Soon o'er the senses wildering creep, 

Soft music to a rural sleep — 

Sad, drowsy, dreamy echoes sound, 

The forest songsters' flock around, 

In tuneful and in tremulous lays, 

Melodious pour their hearts in praise. 

The osier droops its slender branch 

Beneath a blackbird avalanche, 

The trembling aspens quivering spray 

Suspends the bobolink's roundelay, 

And drunken joy of freedom floats 

From wild canaries' golden throats, 

Softening the herons' mournful boom, 

That comes from distant sed°;ed lagoon. 

The hiding thrush in deepest shade, 



34 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

By mingled oaks and hemlocks made, 
Pipes forth in ever-changing key, 
The saddest, sweetest melody, 
While cushats from the vine-clad holly, 
Melt away in melancholy, 
And rustling leaves and shifting breeze, 
The moaning of the coned trees, 
The dull, hushed sound of the waterfall, 
Waft a low, sweet chorus over all. 
The mantling sun's impassioned face, 
Bends rays of love o'er such a place, 
And views from out a crimsoned east, 
One universal world of peace. 
Wild-flowers weigh the passing breeze, 
With odorous boons to scenes like these, 
And zephyrs tarry a moment when, 
They scatter the sweets the flowers send 
While Nature wrapt in lover's wealth, 
All blushing e'en, loves nature's self. 
I dream me back to regions when, 
The sordid reason of mortal ken, 
With butchering knife and slotted bow, 
Or fretting loom nor dragging plow, 
Did'st ne'er the flocks and herds invade, 
With all these murderous tools of trade. 
Poor gentle world, how tender wert 
The various life that round thee girt, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 35 

Ere hatched ye man from plastic clay, 
The rod of might, o'er all to sway. 
Well may ye roll the birth of despair, 
In weirdly words and tuneless air. 



THE SONG OF THE WORLD 

A WORLD among worlds, I am daily whirled, 
But slaughtered by man's the peace that I twirled, 
And from mountain tops now my wrath is hurled 
In the whirlwind's sweep ; 
With a roll and a sweep, 

I come, I come, 
With a rolling sweep, 
I come. 



My vengeance I'm ever wreaking on him, 
As over and around a dizzying spin, 
Whirl I his soul from its anchor within 
With a roll and sweep. 
With a roll and a sweep, 

I leap, I leap, 
With a rolling sweep, 
I leap. 



36 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

I fill my maw with his bones and his dust, 
Nor spot have I of unbroken crust, 
Where man has not in my bowels been thrust, 
With a solemn hush. 
With a roll and a hush, 

I rush, I rush, 
With a rolling hush, 
I rush. 

My clay is planted with many a germ, 
And man taketh up and breedeth the worm, 
Cementing despair, in the triple-bound firm 
I — death — and the worm. 
With a roll and a thrum, 

I come, I come, 
With a rolling sweep, 
I leap. 

Though worlds without man of peace contain, 

Of what were peace without an aim ? 

A bell with not a striker hung, 

A peaceful void that's never rung, 

A boundless plain of grassless sod, 

Nor bud, nor tree, to point to God. 

Thousands of years on axles bright, 

Might wear away by day and night, 

Nor aught be seen or shown at last, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 37 

To tell a dot of time had past ; 

Nor snowy flocks, nor mottled herds, 

Nor all the music-throated birds, 

Nor pulse of life, save human link, 

Hath purpose 'yond a bare instinct. 

Enwrapped within a starry robe, 

All aimless roll a silent globe, 

If man with reason ne'er had been, 

Cast upon its emerald rim. 

Bear witness now each changing day, 

The onward march of Progress' sway, 

The tracings of great Reason's wand, 

Upon the seas and o'er the land ; 

Bending forward from sleeping times, 

Through all the various tempered climes, 

From pole to pole, from zone to zone, 

Where'er his footprints press the loam, 

With granaries of expanding thought, 

From nothing, see what man hath wrought. 

And chief where art and research may, 

Onward hold the measure of their way, 

An ocean of science laves their strands, 

O'erclasped by Newton's and Franklin's hands. 

The sweep of science, modern fann'd 

An ancient ne'er could understand, 

If — enshrouded — arise could he, 

To scan this nineteenth century. 



58 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

The Wandering Jew, though wandering still, 
In tongue-tied wonder leaves his hill, 
And grasps the ocean's bristling mane, 
Swinging to realms of modern reign, 
Where Columbian lightning snaps the strain, 
And dumb amazement bursts his brain. 
Small wonder views like these should daze, 
The primitive minds astonished gaze ; 
The vapory breath of steam god curled, 
Shadowing o'er one half of the world ; 
The magic cable weld together, « 

Continents that vast oceans sever ; 
Or Edison sweep from dome of the sky, 
The mystic soul of electricity. 
If circling years in centuries view, 
Could bring me like the Wandering Jew, 
That I might all the wonders see, 
O'ertracing the disks of futurity, 
I might be led to wail in truth, 
That I was born in Progress' youth. 
A thousand times twelve '11 bring us to 
Twenty-eight hundred and eighty-two ; 
Man with the eagle then shall fly, 
And watery foam his fins shall ply, 
Arise with the sun in Europia land, 
At night to sleep on the golden strand ; 
Thoughts as soon as off the brain, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 39 

Shall picture the eye in symbols plain, 

And brother voice of brother shall know, 

Though seas of brine between may flow ; 

At once shall heat, power, and light, 

From clouds be drawn by day and night, 

And eye astromic shall motion trace, 

Of life that roams the planet's face. 

Nation by nation, shall drop from strife, 

To hide the hatchet and scalping-knife ; 

And battles be fought, in judgment of men, 

With undrawn sword and liquid pen. 

Great cities rise in peopled volume, 

To count their millions in double column ; 

The wilderness be of gardens then, 

And gardens shelter the panther's den. 

Below old Neptune's uttermost pool, 

The love of man for gold shall rule, 

And mountains be levelled a path to make, 

Where ocean on ocean their thirst may slake. 

A noiseless sickle shall mow the wheat, 

Erst sown without or toil or sweat, 

And golden acres in withes be bound, 

As round the spool a moment's wound. 

A Homer and Shakespeare rise again, 

To dwarf the statues of other men. 

And language now that infant's lisp, 

Be found in buried or in classic list. 



40 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

But hold ! my pen — thou wayward dart 
Audacious steel ! too bold thou art, 
From stolid time strip not the veil, 
Nor seek to tell an unborn tale ; 
But drip thy tears in mourning dew, 
The present and the past review, 
Or if more joyous, thou would'st run, 
Smooth glide the track of science sun, 
The exultant spirit to endite, 
Of Progress on its wings of light. 

THE SPIRIT OF PROGRESS. 

GENIUS ! O Genius ! thy triumphs resound. 
As echo from echo echoes rebound, 
Wonder shades wonder to our wondering eyes, 
As century on century centuries rise. 

The voice of discovery loudly calls, 

And mystery from mystery mystery falls ; 

The sickle of progress steadily reaps, 

And knowledge upon knowledge knowledge heaps. 

Invention climbing with bound upon bound, 
Discovery's ladder, round upon round, 
Its fancies dropping so rapid in birth, 
Astonishment ceases to 'stonish the earth. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 4 1 

Thousands upon thousands, day succeeds day, 
And each an advancement marks on the way ; 
Tracing, o'ertracing the temple of fame. 
With heroes of progress, name upon name. 

Thus season by season, season's recur, 
While ages upon ages, ages roll, 
And secrets are that secrets — hidden— were, 
By genius revealed upon Progress' scroll. 

From east, from west, from south, from north, 

Progressive waves of life flow forth ; 

From citied centres to wild frontier, 

We hear the shout of the pioneer, 

We hear his axe with steady stroke, 

Bring down the sturdy monarch oak ; 

We hear sweet tones from cabin near, 

Ring the echoes with heart-wild cheer ; 

Where mingle the hawthorn's snowy sheen, 

With creeping love of the eglantine, 

And the wild grape hides in purpling shade, 

The icy springs their roots inlaid, 

Where bursting sap the cherries run, 

Or oozing in aromatic gum, 

With bronze lumps stud the wine bark o'er, 

Like rubies strown with golden store, 

We hear the voice of Progress shout. 



42 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

The new moves in as the old moves out. 

On prairies of the western plain, 

Of my country's wide and rich domain, 

In wheeling dips of sore unrest 

At disturber of her grassy nest, 

We hear the plover piping far, 

O'er the emigrant's white-winged car ; 

We hear the housewife's raptures run, 

In tangled maze from flowing tongue, 

As o'er the prairie's wide expanse, 

She paints a blooming habitance, 

And pictures to her ardent eye, 

A home, love, and prosperity. 

From swelling caves of golden throats, 

We hear the pheasant's booming notes,* 

Borne on the breath of wildest rose, 

To wake the settler's deep repose ; 

Who quickly wades the dripping mass, 

Of pathless, waist-high, dewy grass, 

To gather from their feedings near, 

The docile ox and restless steer, 

And yoke them to sod whirling plow, 

Upturning grass roots to Aurora's glow, 

Full soon to bear the yellow stain, 

Of ripening, waving, golden grain. 

Where cavernous cheeks of gophers heap, 

* See Note 2. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 43 

Fresh dug earth from burrowings deep, 
And stop their holes at 'proach of light, 
Self-buried in the loams black night ; * 
Where butterflies sport in dreamy haze, 
Arising from meads, the shy deer graze, 
And mallard and loon, and black swan float, 
On waters unswept by white man's boat, 
While cleaving like light the pond lilies through 
The bronze man glides in his reed canoe, 
Knowing the hiss from the limestoned shore, 
Rising and falling with the ashen oar, 
Is a first — a long — a last adieu, 
To the Indian and his reed canoe, 
From the fangs and coils of rattlesnake lore, 
Rattling and hissing from the limestoned shore ; 
Where the prairie lily in deepest red, 
Is seen to wave her triple head, 
And revelling in a nectared waste. 
The wild bee probes each chaliced vase — 
Where the resin weed in lofty pride, 
High bears the wildered traveller's guide, 
In pointed leaves on graceful stem, 
Circled with many a milk-white gem,f 
While from bended top scarce balancing, 
The meadow lark his matins sing — 
We hear the voice of Progress shout, 
* See Note 3. f See Note 4. 



44 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

The new moves in as the old moves out. 
'Tis here within a vine-hung shell, 
Fair truth and love entwined may dwell, 
And ne'er a breath with schemings rife, 
Embitter this, their rural life ; 
Great Nature here in endless grace, 
Upbends to all a beaming face, 
Drinking the sunshine through the rain, 
Smiling to waft it back again, 
So tender and true we e'en most feel 
The fairies through the ether steal. 
So vast, so deep, is Nature's sea, 
On the flowered, boundless, wild prairie. 
Far different that land of ancient soil, 
Whose rentals enslave its sons of toil ; 
Where poor in life no homestead have, 
And e'en in death own not their grave. 
Where by a long ancestral hand, 
Is bound each county's roods of land, 
And a mansion's shadow ever falls, 
On a thousand cabins' clay-built walls. 
Far different under gaslight glow, 
Doth truth and love divided flow ; 
Where with visage of spectre wan, 
Man needs must ever jostle man, 
Wending, winding, threading a way, 
Bereft of half the light of day, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 45 

Through poisonous, dank, and smoky air, 
Near strangled by the hangman Care, 
At last, retiring to suburb known, 
By polished shafts of marble stone, 
To lay beneath the willow's gloom, 
The life he hurried out at noon. 
I wist me now of cities twain, 
Like twins on twin islands lain, 
Where Nature yet the gloom doth fill, 
And tender and true o'er reismeth still. 



THE TWO CITIES. 



THE metropolis breathing with manifold life, 

Of civilized trade or uncivilized strife, 

Mapping out steadily its ten storied lots, 

But yesterday peopled by Hollanders' cots; 

Where the dusky spirit still looketh in vain, 

For Indian village he left on the plain ; 

Go thou there, and view the waves that seethe and 

surge, " 
Its labyrinthian paths from verge to verge, 
And learn that never is man, or many, or few, 
Impartially tender, impartially true. 



46 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

2. 

Go thou, then, and scan the undulating waves, 
That toss the calm of Greenwood's hill of graves,* 
Where the tomb grass quivers and the zephyrs laugh 
'Round each humble grave, and humbler epitaph, 
And echo brings back from the sepulchre near, 
A grave's but a grave, 'folding peasant or peer. 
Though an obelisk rise o'er one to a sky, 
That knows no title to distinguish it by, 
Fondly spreading o'er all its gold and its blue, 
Impartially tender, impartially true. 

Ah, Greenwood, unto casual eye, 
Fair thou art in varied scenery ; 
So calm, so sweet, so soft, so sad, 
As if thy earth, in mourning love was clad. 
When Autumn brushed in dyes grotesque, 
Thou art so richly picturesque, 
E'en dread of death must lightly press, 
Who hope to share thy loveliness. 
While not unmindful of each scene, 
In beauty spread thy walks between, 
An eye more earnest loves to trace, 
The deep, sad melancholy on thy face. 
Or gather wisdom from morals spread, 
* See Note 5. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 47 

By the hushed, still voices of thy dead — 

Granite voices, that in silence call, 

The poor, the rich, the strong, the weak, the all. 

To catch the supplicating tones, 

Rising from thy wilderness of stones, 

Pale tongues, that would some memory save, 

The white lipp'd language of the grave ; 

Hard, soundless tongues of pallid clay, 

Soft, silent lips that seem to say, 

" O mourner, raise thy bowed head, 

Weep not the lost, mourn not the dead, 

Chide not thou the hand that giveth, 

For nothing is dead that liveth." 

Here rug of moss is all that tells, 

Where timid worth more timid dwells, 

As, nestling a radiant tear, 

The last glance of the sun falls here. 

There shadows o'er the flowers glide, 

From rising shafts of worldly pride, 

A pride unto the mourner's breast, 

Alas, a weakness to the world confessed. 

That pride will thrive in little spots — 

Go view the peacock's wildering dots, 

Or England's accidental birth, 

As in the sea God spilled a drop of earth, 

When this great monster world was formed. 

But may that pride be ever scorned — 



48 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

That dazzling of cemten'an gloom — 

Of wrapping fortunes in a tomb. 

Full many a monumental pile, 

Serves to embitter the cynic's smile, 

That, not in life the poor, but here the stone, 

Must now the generous dollars own ; 

To mark the tomb majestic stand, 

That wraps the vitriol-veined hand — 

A caustic once to test the gold, 

Wherein the narrow mind was rolled ; 

A spongy tube to cast the spray, 

And blind the eyes and wash away, 

From simple worth their little store, 

The hard-earned shillings of the poor. 

Or fading smile more bitter burn, 

At rising bust on pillared urn, 

Where vain-glory by codicil, 

Here impoverished a half-fledged will ; 

Where in the casket's metal strength, 

The egot form lies stretched at length, 

That gave his life to mammon's god, 

To purchase glory under sod ; 

Enslaved his soul, exchanged his heart, 

For chiselled gloss of sculptor's art, 

And waged the flesh of form divine, 

For wealth to grave a marble line. 

Crazed votaries of the goddess Fame, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 49 

For gold to buy a sounding name, 
Man like the gopher mines the ground, 
And like the gopher lives to leave a mound. 
O grandeur! glitter! where art thou ? 
Ask Napoleon if he have them now. 
Alas, the worm should house the bone, 
Erst whose nod could topple o'er a throne, 
Whose motion could vast empires sway, 
Should stoop to grin at yellow clay. 
And yet for fame's posthumous reward, 
The bard, the twice ambitioned bard — 
Steels his nerves and steadies his hand, 
Writes his name and writes in sand. 
First white, then gray, then black with storm, 
Clouds ever form and lose their form, 
And clouds of names that float to-day, 
White and gray and black shall fade away. 
Like echoes that echo their own refrain, 
Whispers my harp the all behind a name. 



THE TINDER OF A NAME. 

The torch that mocks the flame, 
The unconsumed brain, 
The asbestos of a name, 
Seek not in marble grain. 



50 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Under thirty centuries rain 
Hath the flesh of Homer lain, 
And the world doth yet retain, 
The asbestos of his name. 
The little lettered name, 
The glory of that name, 
Cut not in marble grain, 
The world doth yet retain. 

The grasp on shaggy mane, 
'Bove narrow grassy lane, 
The darkness of the fane — 
The blot of inky stain, 
On snowy fibered plain, 
The blankness of the reign- 
To all who buy in vain, 
A giant lettered name, 
To those who pay to gain, 
On the marble's sandy grain, 
The dissolving tracks of fame, 
The tinder of a name. 

And who will write the pain, 
Of the foolish and the sane, 
The humble and the vain, 
The living who are slain 
With the da^srer of their name 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 5 I 

Or the few who will retain 
The semblance of a name. 
The load that natal came, 
The gold or iron chain, 
The praising and the blame, 
The anguish and the shame, 
The glory and the fame — 
The all behind a name? 

If we vain men, our minds could see, 

In glass-revealing tracery, 

How soon would break the startled glass, 

Reflecting such an awful mass. 

View how clearly 's marked our wishes track, 

E'en through the mirror's leaded back, 

Until the quicksilver smoothly glide, 

And proves to be our humbled pride. 

And lo ! regrets untimely throng, 

From ante-room of waitings lonor 

And warnings that have long been waved, 

Flock round to taunt "thou would'st not be 

saved." 
How grimly black to hearts that are proud, 
First seems Ambition's winding shroud ; 
How hard the search through inner mind, 
For key the run-down clock to wind ; 
How loth to feel that facts are true ; 



52 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

How vainly then the truth review, 
Till by the shadow on the floor, 
We know the wolf is at the door. 
Perchance his life but scarce began, 
Sits there down a broken man, 
Brooding o'er each arrant folly, 
Brooding, grieving, melancholy, 
Slow hatching from the eggs of thought, 
What experience dear hath bought ; 
The withering, bleeding, broken branch — 
Its leaf that wears the ashen blanch, 
Where now the birds that used to sing, 
Its praises through the budding spring — 
Who whet their beaks on leaf so green, 
Softly humming its velvet sheen ; 
Who drank its shade in summer's hour, 
Praised and sipped its fragrant flower, 
Pecked the fruit from off its bough, — 
Where these friends — where are they now ? 
Whisper echoes the forests around, 
Of branches new the birds have found ; 
But the gravel's craunch beneath the tread 
Of Poverty comes in the songsters stead — 
Then follows the skinny spectre Want, 
Each hour and each dream to haunt, 
Till the brain grows still, and the blood grows 
thick, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 53 

The laugh of Death, the needle's prick, 

The pulvered bark, the barrel's click, 

And the world is told, and the heart grows sick. 

The proud man by poverty oppressed, 

Ne'er 'lows the secret to 'scape his breast, 

He who has been poor and now is great, 

May afford to revert to his low estate ; 

He feels the pains while the pangs endure, 

And then forgets that others are poor — 

Forgets the all that roam the land, 

To nerve the suicide's starving hand, 

That hungry Want, and gnawing Pride, 

Bare their teeth to the suicide, 

And grim- Necessity — vengeful elf — 

All else devoured, devours herself. 

O the thoughts wild floating o'er, 

O'er floating minds of the proudly poor, 

The wail, the shriek, from the wolf-kept door, 

And the world moves on as it did before. 

Go thou to Nature's deepest wild, 

A balm for thy grief misfortune's child ; 

Go sit thee in the mountain storm, 

And view the storm god's awful form, 

Feel the tears that fall from on high, 

Tears from an angel inverted sky, 

Feel the tears and ask not why, 

Falls on thee the angel's sympathy ; 



54 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Uncovered feel them cool thy brain, 
Feel the tears — the pouring rain. 
From caverned side of mountain brown, 
Hear the thunder wild tumbling down, 
And now how close, and now how far, 
Hear the wheels of the lightning's car, 
Rolling, rumbling over the brown, 
Rolling to thee from the mountain down, 
Astounding, echoing, deafening glee, 
Hear the Creator's minstrelsy, 
Hear the voices coming to thee, 
The elements wildest sympathy. 
. View old Neptune's arm of might, 
Cast at thy feet the stars of night, 
Caught in his lap — the lap of the sea, 
Caught in their wildering brilliancy, 
The beautiful, wonderful stars for thee, 
Myriad worlds of sympathy ; 
View them glide, and hide in the foamy beat, 
Sparkle, glimmer, and lie at thy feet, 
Glimmer and sparkle, wet with the brine, 
Their wealth, their love, and their gold are thine. 
God sent them down in the water to be, 
A guide, a help, and a solace to thee. 
Go where the birds and beavers build, 
Go where the air with Nature is filled, 
Go where the crags and blades of the sod, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 55 

Lift their index fingers to God, 

And know where afflictions child may find, 

Sympathy fall to an aching mind. 



INDEXES. 

GIGANTIC distortions of Nature's first morn, 

Hail! majestic sons of rock-rifted sod, 
Inspirers for poets of ages unborn, 

Hail ! Indexes to Nature's great God. 
Here, mountain o'ertopping mountain, 

Each looking and pointing above, 
Great earthy fingers to the fountain, 

Pointing to the fountain of love. 

There huge, deep, bent and rock-girded chasms, 

Rough cut by the lashings of time, 
As when Mother Earth writhing in spasms, 

Entwisted these joints of her spine. 
The sentinel firs from their topmost crags, 

The harebell that kisses their feet, 
The tapering prongs of their wind-footed stags, 

All point to one star-written sheet. 

And thus doth Nature hold the bowl, 
Of kindness to the tired soul; 



5 6 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Thus variety throughout her plan, 

Scattereth to unthankful man ; 

Thus points her every spier and leaf, 

Where to turn to find relief, 

Tells the silvered and the golden sheaf, 

Where to pour their load of grief. 

Ye who read, and ye who hear, 

Call in your thoughts, throw out the fear, 

Surge back on the brain the winding blood, 

Sweep the scum from the spirithood, 

Cleanse the cells, the warp, the woof. 

The cablings to the attic roof, 

The soot, the webs, the cinders roll back, 

On the seething blood turned down in its track, 

Till the brain shall be as it ought to be, 

White as the foam on the wind-tossed sea, 

And peer its colored windows through, 

And know what a generous mind can do. 

Till it sees and draws the rankling dart 

Of suffering from a brother's heart. 

Descended from the olden ark, 

Soft mission bird o'er waters dark, 

Explorer of a drowned world, 

Where waters round Mount Herat curled — 

I see thy little limbs their sinews riven, 

From tube high aimed at thee and heaven ; 

I see thy restless, loving mate, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. $? 

Coo round thee in thy wounded state, 
And bring from 'neath a heaving vest, 
Food to thy else enfamished breast. 
A soft-eyed nurse whose ceaseless care, 
Attends thee till the pathless air, 
Again receives thy mended form, 
And thanks from heart by nature warm, 
To low-voiced one that e'en most felt, 
The pains that through thy system dwelt. 
Deeply ensconced in cushioned car, 
Noiseless gliding 'neath midnight star, 
Cupid is warming his finger tips, 
By glow he has fanned on lovers' lips — 
When through forest night there fitful floats, 
Wierd curdling howls from coward throats, 
Dismal wails that breathe of despair, 
Quaver and die on the icicled air. 
The startled pace, the pricking ears, 
Mark the sleigh-steeds quickening fears, 
The tightening grasp on driving arm, 
Speaks the loved ones deep alarm, 
The quick, sharp cries that nearer grow, 
The blood that ceases — to more wildly flow, 
The dim loping shadows in backward gloom, 
The limp, still form, in terrors swoon, 
The wild, mad fury of steel-bound feet, 
Dashinsr the frost white-rimed sleet. 



58 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

The deep-set courage on bearded face, 

Where thought for self can find no place, 

The creeping white round lips so bold, 

Whilst hiding of love 'neath bison fold, 

The heart's great throb — the inward prayer, 

The grey-flecked foam that feathers the air, 

The hot-tongued breath now drawn so near, 

Its misty curlings in the frost appear, 

Through dusky shadow of the moon's sad light. 

Like shrouds inwoven with chills of night — 

Like wraps for the soul — but the spring 

Of a form — its half balanced cling — 

A flash — the quick revolver's crack, 

And a shaggy form sinks down on the pack, 

That catch in their teeth the wounded one, 

Shred the flesh and crunch the bone, 

Strip from pipings a half-told moan, 

Till tufts of hair and skeleton strown, 

Is all that's left on crimsoning snow, 

Of chief they followed a moment ago. 

Long hath the busy insect flown, 

That buildeth without foundation stone, 

Gathering mortar from nature's looms, 

To build the walls of winter tombs, 

Where the souls of the flowers may lie, 

In essence they drank from dews of the sky, 

Till the sob of the south wind murmuring by, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 59 

" Where do the souls of the flowers lie," 
And quick from cells of honied tombs, 
The zephyrs bear the summer blooms, 
Wafting them back to the buried stem, 
Kissing the world into smiles again. 
Now rent are thighs in hailstone shower, 
That bore the soul from the dying flower, 
And comrades come — and oh, the sting, 
The stricken bee is a lifeless thing. 
Then which, O man, choose thou to be, 
The dove, the wolf, or the stinging bee. 
I would not that our every breath, 
Should breathe a new-born pleasure's death, 
Nor each round dollar downward roll, 
To some poor pocket-empty soul, 
Nor feelings so great for others be, 
As to ignore our own felicity ; 
Only that the hatchways of the heart, 
Be barred not 'gainst the generous art, 
That while we tread our own fair way, 
Where others hopes may prostrate lay, 
We do not break with heedless spurn, 
The worthy rare and fallen urn. 
For plants there are in the human mind, 
That round ourselves must ever wind, 
That e'en the lowest in the land, 
Must feel, and feeling understand ; 



60 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Thus love, honor and reverence may, 
Claim their niches in the varying lay. 

LOVE, HONOR AND REVERENCE. 

WHERE sleeps the man with blood so slow, 
That 'twill not burn with warmer glow, 
Wild course the veins keen shivering flow,* 

When love's the wave. 
Go bring him who so lost to truth, 
So great or learned, so wild uncouth, 
Who never kneeled in age or youth, 

A woman's slave. 

And where the man so dead to fame, 
To whom the wish for an honored name, 
Has never lodged in heart or brain, 

By night or day. 
Exists there one of thought so mean, 
That recks he not the world's esteem, 
And ne'er would stay one passing gleam, 

Ambition's ray. 

Walks there a man on earth's domain, 
Who ne'er has seen a Creator's name, 
Revealed throughout all Nature's reign, 
Nor bowed the knee ; 
* See Note 6. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 6 1 

Or breathes there one with mind so base, 
Who never yet hath raised his face, 
For pardon to the throne of grace, 
Imploringly. 

'Tis e'en from such are seraphs born, 
Whom have these plumes unsullied worn. 
When seek we at thy virgin shrine, 
Thine heavenly gift — that peace divine — 
Ethereal Love thou doth alway seem, 
As if forever wrapt in an angel's dream ; 
O'er bubbling without, or taint or art, 
Come must thou from the ravished heart, 
For love that's worthy of the name, 
Lies not down with Reason in the brain ; 
One selfish thought attend in train, 
How sad the change, four lettered name, 
As L and U and S and T, 
Glare from the graves of chastity. 
No heavier stone in the Devil's sling, 
Than woman lost man's soul's to wing; 
Nor brighter gems 'mong stars above, 
Than woman's virtue, pity and love. 
Ah, the gold that falls to slighting man, 
Worth more than gold Peruvian, 
When ta'en, unswept, by furnace blast, 
As gold — is gold unto the last. 



6l BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Ay, this were a rude, a worthless life, 
If there were no such name as wife. 
And Honor — did'st I speak of thee ? 
Or Ambition could a virtue be ? 
Apples of gold on tree of wealth, 
Seldom are plucked by hand of stealth, 
Or dash or chance — regardless plan, 
But rather by the bold cautious man ; 
And final plucked — transient found at best, 
The glittering lining to a leaden vest, 
For lips that wreathe Ambition's cup, 
Bitter, bitter dregs of gall must sup. 
Ten thousand lives a hero make, 
And one unto the gallows take.* 
Ambition such escape can ne'er, 
The scalding drip of the widow's tear ; 
Bivouacked at last on Death's cold vale, 
His welcome shall be the orphan's wail. 
A thought to power nor wealth can give, 
With whom ambition safe can live ; 
Lasting honor singles only out, 
Him from the multitudinous rout, 
Who has no wish to dazzle earth, 
With anniversaries of his birth, 
Or quizzing, gaping crowds to see, 
Pointing with a " that is he." 
* See Note 7. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 63 

His breast but swells with honest pride, 

That those he loves when he has died, 

May toll their grief in tears sincere, 

And his children love the name they bear. 

Seeks but for honor by honor's ways, 

Unwishing and unasking praise, 

Lives to be the hero of his home, 

Where wealth and power unsought may come. 

Ambition has no blush of shame, 

That thus would leave an honored name. 

Much more might I -the theme unfold, 

But where the use — the tale is told ; 

And, when simplicity is strength, 

Why tedious draw to tedious length? 

Thirdly, I asked if there were one, 

Who never looked his God upon, 

As traced on Nature's open page, 

Through every clime and every age. 

Who had not seen the opening leaf, 

From binding bud burst in relief; 

The living stream though held in vise, 

At last break through its bars of ice. 

The sleeping germ all silent dwell, 

That final cracks the acorn's shell, 

Or all the sluggish streams of life, 

That sleep the gloom of winter's strife, 

To blaze a heaven of splendor when 



64 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Summer has breathed its love to them ; 

Can there be waif who has not seen 

Winter melt in the palm of spring ? 

Or the many emblems God has given, 

To teach to man there is a heaven ; 

Where germ that bursts its bulb of clay, 

May bloom forever in summer's day, 

Where sluggish stream on earth that runs, 

Shall glance through rays of a thousand suns. 

Can there be one with honest thought, 

Who honest thinks no hand hath wrought, 

To sew the various threads that weave, 

The form through which his pleasures breathe ! 

Nor pliant muscle nor jointed bone, 

No architectural skill hath known ! 

Or pores that honey-comb his skin, 

The silken grass that grows between, 

That all should be by hazard placed, 

Sufficient quite and none to waste ? 

Plain heirs at law of circumstance, 

Blundering together from blundering chance? 

That cannot see in leaf nor stream, 

Nor aught but liquid and velvet green, 

And cannot trace on human wall, 

A sovereign mind o'er-reigneth all? 

Who of these all ne'er asked the how? 

The cause ne'er sought ? nor e'er didst know, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 6$ 

This earth's but one foundation stone, 

With all the stars to God's own throne ! 

That there are many who wildly talk 

And run on roads not safe to walk, 

I know full well, and as I know 

Pity the fools with fools that go ; 

While God and Heaven they stout deny, 

An inward something gives the lie.* 

Their tongues run off with their helpless brains, 

But within somewhere the truth remains. 

I argue not that all is true, 

The god-like speak or Christians do, 

But simply this and nothing more, 

There is a God and life before, 

And the better we live the days we run, 

The better will be the life to come ; 

This path so simple straight and plain, 

Why leave it for the atheist's pain ? 

While Nature gives such ample proof, 

Why hold the heart from God aloof? 

That the mind sinks not in loamy groove, 

Your dreams last night as amply prove; 

Knowest not the mind doth never sleep ? 

That vigils of slumber only keep 

Their night-watch o'er each tired bone 

While the mind doth on and onward roam ? 

* See Note 8. 



66 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Is not thy pillow peopled o'er 

With dreamy nothings the mind may store ? 

If mind must in the coffin lie, 

Why not sleep as well as die ? 

When waking we seek our daily bread, 

We hear, or feel our thinkings tread, 

The lids nor shut nor ope their valves, 

They are a world all to themselves. 

Whose hand can stay the course of thought ? 

Its vitals where ? and mind is what ? 

A thin — a gauzy — ether elf, 

The mind thinks not can grasp itself. 

If stop it not by day or night, 

Go, believe in God — Heaven and Right. 

And yea, the Right — how much the need, 

The more loved Wrong to supersede, 

Let various paths unholy tell, 

That bear the Finger-Boards to hell. 

What say the boards ? ah, who can ask !' 

Drunkards, murderers — but 'twere endless task ; 

The Betrayer now shall have the song, 

That very Devil Prince of wrong. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 67 



THE BETRAYER. 

No slimier folds the snake enclose, 
Than wrap thy treacherous heart ; 

No venomous tooth to trusting youth, 
Like thy deceptive art. 

No honor hides or truth abides, 

Within thy cruel brain, 
Nor virtue's tears, or parent's fears, 

Can save a home from shame. 

No pity dwells, or sorrow knells, 

Within thy lying breast ; 
Though love resist, you steal with a kiss, 

The casket of life the best. 

No wretch e'er hung with blacker tongue, 
Than taints thy perfidious breath ; 

Young fluttering birds who list thy words, 
But drink their honor's death. 



When with words on words the tongue be 

fraught, 
And the brain more pregnant grows with thought, 



6S BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

I scarce can properly confine, 
My pen that gallops o'er the line ; 
Else words that follow now could ne'er, 
Slipped from off the pointed spear. 

What ! Hast a sister. Ha ! Hast a sister. 
Ha ! ha ! Thou ingrate ! Thou hast no sister, 
Else quivering thy heart would'st leave its seat, 
The very eyeballs sJirink — sear — once to meet 
That trusting, that guileless gaze. No answer yet. 
How ! wretch, hast a sister ? Thy father's pet, 
Whose life ebbs his life, whose heart beats his heart, 
Hast not a sister, Fiend ! Whose blood is part 
Of thy mother's blood, whose life, soul, honor, 
(Chaste, unsullied) asp like thee should wrong her, 
Earth — yawning, would'st yield up a three-fold 

grave, 
Winding fold its clay in compassion to save — 
To screen, to hide, to bury that sister's shame, 
That mother's anguish, that father's name — 
Thou hast no sister, no, thou hast no sister, 
Oh, had'st thou but one, to shield another's sister. 

Can he who invites the curse of gin, 
To enfold his soul its coils within, 
Avert his gaze from writings all, 
In warning traced on ruin's wall ? 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 69 

That reeling, wavering, uncertain pace, 

That meeting of earth face to face, 

Nature's own manuscript can read, 

Can witness, and yet fail to heed ? 

Ne'er learn from him to thirst consigned, 

(Whom ties of nature cannot bind, 

Who buildeth altar whereon to slay, 

In sacrifice each earthly stay, 

Whose wife, children, love, hope and pride, 

In one grand funeral pile have died) 

The worm of folly that wriggles through 

The molten amber of cornia dew ? 

There crossed my path in days gone by, 

A vagrant with the blood-shot eye, 

The broken voice the agued limb, 

That ever mark and point to him, 

Who has all hope and reason gave, 

To deepest hell this side the grave ; 

To liquid flames that wrap the soul, 

The hell that lies within the bowl. 

His hat stretched forth with shaking hand, 

He in broken tones did half demand — 

Half supplicate for needful aid, 

" My supper," he said, " is two days delayed." 

Thinking, mayhap, 'twas worse than waste, 

Odd pennies few I dropped in haste, 

And would have turned and left him there. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

But for a look of deep despair, 

Like workings of a once proud mind, 

Where yet some pride, some thought refined, 

Remained to raise a protest to 

This bottom step — this outrage new. 

And, marvel reader, as you may, 

I turned not from this man away, 

But said, " Good sir, this elm is broad, 

This rustic seat by worms well gnawed, 

I would you share with me a space 

While set you forth the checquered race, 

You must have run that I should see 

You what you ne'er were meant to be." 

I sat me down, a step he took, 

And ne'er shall I forget the look 

That crossed his face — a lurid flash 

Of misery, writhing under conscience lash, 

A lifetime's follies penciled there, 

The canvas of that face laid bare ; 

That look told often thousand sins, 

Ten thousand thousand thoughts within ; 

An instant lasts — and instant fades 

The picture in all its varying shades. 

" You, sir," he said, " who have not felt 

Your brain within your skull to melt — 

To melt — to die, or dormant sleep, 

'Neath lying a vile and sordid heap 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 7 1 

Of passions gross — till wakened by 

Some act, some speech of sympathy, 

Know not the millioneth part of pain, 

He knows who first finds pride again ; 

The glance, the tone you gave are mine, 

Through remnant of my tattered time, 

But the money, sir, return I must, 

For 'twas for rum to quench my thirst, 

I begged — I craved — and not for bread — 

For know my wants are 'bundant fed 

By brothers mine — save but for drink, 

Which warps my mind unto the brink 

Of desperate thought — of desperate deed, 

To lave my vitals quenchless need ; 

Fought, cheated, gambled, perjured swore, 

But never have I begged before. 

This — and question strange — and gentle tone, 

Send manhood to its shattered throne, 

Like waters rush through- broken dam, 

For one brief moment a man I am." 

His hate of self not half released, 

The storm of words a moment ceased ; 

This wreck I found so trembling weak, 

I trembled now to hear him speak. 

Ne'er known had I a scene like this, 

The whirlpool of the soul's abyss, 

Where leaps the sovereignty of mind, 



72 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

'Pon groveling lusts that galling bind 

Its powers — that, respect enslave, 

And plunge ambition in a living grave ; 

Scarce pause he made, but thus resumed, 

" I thought the past so deep entombed 

Within myself, that naught could break 

The bars of memory, or make me speak. 

Yet I can but choose, though know not why, 

To tell you my sad history. 

Here, before you, I stand confessed, 

The embodiment of man's wretchedness, 

Confessed by looks and speech of all, 

Whom webs of Bacchus once enthrall. 

'Twere waste of words to tell you how, 

My childhood passed on summer's brow, 

Enough that I all pleasures knew, 

That e'er were round fair children threw ; 

How, when I verged into that age, 

Where youth steps on young manhood's stage, 

Indulgent parents paved my way, 

With all that wealth and love could pay ; 

A kind, gay, generous spendthrift I, 

In this the morning of my profli'cy, 

As scorns an eagle the raven's feed, 

Scorned I to do a selfish deed. 

'Twas then I met, loved her who came, 

To bear— what I've dishonored — my name. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 73 

Fair Addibel, dear Addibel, 

My Addibel— what words can tell, 

Our joy— our life— thy fate— my grief— 

Our love so sweetly, bitterly brief, 

How can I tell— no, ask me not, 

To tear from memory's inmost grot, 

The wreathings that her shade enroll, 

The one last anchor to my soul ; 

Who faded as I sank more low, 

Gradual as the flaking snow, 

Drooped beneath each added blow, 

Sobbing, grieving — but 'twere all to know, 

We loved, wedded, lived and died, 

Her form — my heart — in one grave bide." 

One moment stilled his husky tone, 

And then " I was not left alone, 

For still had I a tiny elf, 

The image of her mother's self; 

Though neglected as a rose run wild, 

Yet termed the drunkard's angel child, 

By neighbor's near and far. Full oft 

From tavern, bar-room, shed or loft, 

Have I been ta'en at midnight hour, 

By this, my- fair young fragile flower. 

As if 'twere by some subtle chain, 

Led was I, whom strong men urged in vain. 

Falter would not this tongue of mine, 



74 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

To mark each step the downward line 

Of dissipation's deadly work, 

Or fangs that in the wine-cup lurk — 

But — my wife, my child, wake memories each, 

That — pardon you must this faltering speech. 

Though scant her garments, scant our board, 

Complained she not by sign or word, 

But reigned an angel here on earth, 

Where angels seldom have their birth. 

And ne'er was seen such simple grace, 

As with passing years she grew apace, 

Nor ere before did nature trace, 

Such loveliness in maiden's face, 

So sweet, so gentle, e'en was she, 

That for this world she ne'er could be, 

Was said by all who knew her then, 

And loved as if their child had been. 

Then o'er that face there came a change, 

A change so coy, and rare, and strange, 

Such joy reflected every part, 

It told the open secret of her heart. 

Full well I guessed the youth who had, 

With love my darling richly clad ; 

And pleased was I the rich man's son, 

Should not have scorned to look upon 

A blossom by the wayside grown, 

To artful culture all unknown. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 7$ 

Pleased he should be of noble brow, 
As noble e'en strange friend as thou ; 
Albeit his father's younger days, 
Had shared my father's servants' ways, 
Yet the dagger thought of what I was, 
Pierced certain qualms of pride that rose. 
And still again that face doth change, 
And now so wild, and sad, and strange, 
Such grief o'er anguished every part, 
It told of shadow on the heart. 
For him she loved had told her all 
His sire had said beyond recall, 
Than with a drunkard's daughter wed, 
Rather would he see him cold and dead ; 
That curse of drink would descend unto 
His name for generations through. 
Life was not life to them without 
Each other, on this earthward route, 
Nor could they choose to mark the taint, 
In offspring theirs— his words did paint ; 
However warped their sanity, 
Each with each they resolved to die. 
With cheeks pressed closely side by side, 
No breath of time their deaths divide, 
His hand — her temple — the pistols touch — 
One ball — one sigh — oh God, too much, 
This sound of words, this outward speech, 



j6 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Doth make my soul for wakeless death beseech. 

To all who met around my hearth, 

To each and all I've loved on earth, 

Mylife has been a poisoned drug, 

My life their very graves has dug. 

Snakes, devils, the vipers of hell, 

Ever in inebriates' visions dwell, 

But torture slight to brain of mine, 

Were tongues of flame, or folds of slime ; 

Then what to me doth liquor contain, 

As draught upon draught my thirst must drain, 

The corpse of Addibel there doth float, 

In every glass that sweeps my throat, 

And clearest rum I ever can see, 

Is a daughter's oozing blood to me." 

His voice had ceased — and he was gone ; 

The distance held his tottering form, 

Ere waked had I from horror's thrall. 

He heard, or heeded not my eager call, 

But slowly vanished like shadow wrought 

By wandering cloud. How true I thought, 

The rock of ruin with ebbing tide 

Which the wave's rich tint at first doth hide, 

Ever wrecks each bark in the purple sea, 

That trusts its shimmering foam of treachery. 

Seduction's lip, the goblets thorn, 

Foul murder from these twain is born ; 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 77 

Step by step from its cradle youth, 
May fall from virtue's paths of truth, 
Till the highest peaks in the alps of crime, 
Are scaled ; till the days and hours of time, 
Shall relentless chase the quaking heir, 
Of ghastly Cain from lair to lair. 



THE MURDERER'S DESPAIR. 

He comes with crouching light and stealthy stride, 

As if unseen, unwatched, unknown to glide 

Afar from out the public haunts of men, 

And stops — and looks — and speaks — and starts again. 

" Contains the air in boundless space, 
No safe retreat or unknown place 
To forget ? " 

And what forget ? Forget that he ever was ; 
Forget his life, or forget its laws ? 
Has affection — disappointed — stamped that look, 
Or some dark sin his peace of mind betook? 

" Contains the crater's burning lakes. 
Some pit where justice never wakes 
Nor regret ? " 



Regret ! And wherefore wish to drive regret, 
From off his mind ? From out his brain? And yet 



;8 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

There is that about him would'st gain belief, 
That his was once a high — an honored life. 

" Contains the sea a pool so deep, 
Where guilty crime in peace may sleep 
And remain ? '' 

What ! Would'st consign his soul to oblivion's reign ? 

Eternal sleep, nor rise to life again ? 

Aha! those frenzied eyes, that bristling hair, 

All — all bespeak the murderer's wild despair. 

" Contains the earth no spot so dark, 
As'll hide the hand that bears the mark 
Of Cain?" 

That look — that eager glare of fierce alarm, 
As if some calling voice or beckoning arm, 
Would instant rise from earth or cleave the air, 
Answering at once his frightful prayer — 

" Speak — ye demons that o'er me hover ; 
Speak — know ye place my sin to cover 
And the name? " 

From out the rocks and hills, and all around, 

There rose a wild, a weird and ghastly sound, 

As of a voice, so strangely, sternly solemn, 

Slow answering with increasing volume, 

" Nor earth — nor sea — nor air retreat unfold, 

To the blackened, damned, and unrepentant soul." 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 79 

Betrayers, drunkards, murderers all, 

Are but the cover to a ball 

Of lesser crimes — too long hath wrought 

The Muse in halting, broken thought, 

In sudden turns with meaning fraught, 

At first not known till final caught 

By application just, to now begin, 

Unraveling this endless ball of sin. 

Too long hath wrought to further draw, 

The various pleasures within the law 

Of Nature. Too far on time hath trod, 

To longer plead the cause of God, 

Or call the pilgrims of the night, 

First to see, and then to do the right. 

To give deep-toned passions of the breast, 

Language. Or set in type a look expressed, 

A feeling felt — or depth of scorn, 

From lost but once high feelings born. 

In the vast sea of future days, 

Again the maid her voice may raise, 

If he who feels her gentle breath, 

Sleep not in the icy arms of death ; 

Here on willow that doth pendant lave, 

Its tasseled branch in Hudson's wave, 

I hang my harp. Its strain next flows, 

Perchance, from land where ever grows 

Food ambrosial for the gods of old 



8o BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Rich fertilized with sands of gold 

A luscious medley of all fruits. 

Or from where all the rich pursuits, 

Of worldly man engendered are — 

The rocks where rose the natal star, 

Of pilgrim restless energy. 

Perchance next flow from near the sea 

Mexique. Where robed are fields in summer's 

snow, 
And rugged beauties of the cactus glow. 
Italy of our western world, 
Where first are giant blooms unfurled, 
Of rare magnolias breathing sweet ; 
Where in genial warmth all seasons meet, 
And chill winter throwing off his chill, 
Reigns a Canadian summer still ; 
Where in and out 'mong rocks doth glide, 
The lizard by the rainbow dyed, 
And from mesquit branch is ever heard, 
The taunting call of the mocking bird ; 
Where in a sea of deepest green, 
The orange lamps of gold are seen, 
And grey festooned with mossy art, 
The Beau d'Arc whose golden heart, 
With barbed arms of cooling shade, 
Shields him who now at random laid, 
Defies the Texan sun. Perchance from where 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 8 1 

Smoke fantastic wreathes the air, 

From prairie fires miles of flame, 

That mourning crapes the buffalo plain. 

Or from the Rocky's towering cones, 

First catch the west wind's savage tones — 

Which, soft subdued beneath the string 

^Eolian of their caverns sing. 

Or from Yosemite's grandeur vast, 

Where oft is seen in strange contrast, 

A leafy dell the rocks between, 

In deepest gorge of cataract ravine. 

Or from National Park of the Yellowstone, 

Where wildest poetry of nature's thrown 

On one vast page. And still perchance 

May wake from long and dreamy trance, 

The string of solitude to tune, 

In twilight shade of dazzling noon — 

That deep, still profundity of gloom, 

Once so dear to the swarthy man — 

Within the groves Wabashian. 

O Columbia! Why poet son of thine, 

E'er should cross the fleckered brine 

To gather shells on foreign shore, 

Wave-worn by the bards of yore, 

Is strangely strange. 'Twere better far 

To touch the reed vernacular, 

And teach a world of olden eyes 



82 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

That here is found the poet's prize, 
Our native wilds. Must it be known 
The muse hath now effeminate grown, 
Degenerate from Dryderian throne, 
Where with power, strength and fancy strown. 
Each line and word with meaning rife, 
No middle path allowed? Must strife 
Continue, as to who best may 
Write — not for time — but for our day, 
Bagatelles refined ? Is 't not time, 
The tawdry tinsel of verandahed vine 
Be shaken from Pegasus' mane? 
Then reason wrong, and effort vain, 
E'er that Chaucer should bequeath the sin 
Of rhyme — e'er that he indulged in 
The gay delirium of a dream 
Termed poetry* — a transient gleam, 
When Milton sent his name sublime, 
Trundling down the centuries of time, 
O'ershadowed to be by genteel shape, 
And pen exquisite that needs must ape, 
Bits of " Blue China," and all such trash, 
Within the sweep of Dunciad lash ; 
Gorgeous writers of frescoed skies, 
Drawing-room poets with goggled eyes, 
Who rake the ashes of folly 
* See Note 9. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 83 

For embers of greatness — all a 

Dream — a vacant, staring dream — wno cherish 

Wrecks, that in the sea of fashion perish. 

Misfortune ever is the nurse 

Of genius — and he the genius of verse, 

Who near scales the pinnacle of Fame, 

Has but to fall the height to gain. 

Not that he to whom 'tis native not, 

Can hope to shed immortal thought, 

By sufferings vast, but for whom the maid — 

Coy and diffident — deigns to braid 

The wreath, will find its verdure best is held, 

If fate his lot with sorrows weld. 

THE FOUNTAIN OF POETRY. 

'TIS said Wordsworth's life, like Purity's infant 

slumbers, 
No harsher sound e'er knew than the music of his 

numbers ; 
Had torrents of crushing trouble o'er his soul had 

play, 
Wordsworth would be greater than Wordsworth is 

to-day ; • 
Like those seraph poets whose murmuring silvery 

rhymes, 
Falling as a mantle shed beauty o'er their lines, 



84 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Differ from poets who with thoughts the most in- 
tense, 

Can those enrugged thoughts in fewest words con- 
dense, 

Tis hard to choose which the greater be — or one or 
both— 

And depends, perhaps, upon the readers mental 
growth. 

While from Grief's deepest basin sweetness may be 

culled, 
And through this gathered sweetness troubles self 

be lulled, 
Yet more, 'tis the fountain where strength and power 

lie, 
Though pleasure drain the care, the fount itself runs 

dry; 
Hence Cowper's days of dark to him were potent 

lever, 
By which a madman's phrenzy became immortal 

ever ; 
And Poe his wild phantasmas drew from 'neath a veil, 
By affliction woven o'er him in steely bars of mail. 
Thus Burns his greater lines, their grandest power 

drew, 
When most dripped his pen with agony's blistering 

dew. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 85 

E'en my less inspired pen whatsoe'er 'thas brought, 
Has in direst troubles o'er anguished tears been 

wrought ; 
One thought — perchance — a generation hence to 

read, 
To send it on my heart was crushed its ink to bleed. 
Still is ever flowing by increasing distance shed, 
The balm of pitying time o'er the bowed head — 
Time passes, and onward and onward we're beckoned, 
Chaos — birth — infant — child — man — age — death — 

and then — 
O Life ! Life ! 'tis but an Eternity's second, 
Yea — 'tis less than that — 'tis nearest kin to nothing. 



t> m 



'Tis well ! All ills are swept away 

On the tide of Time! Tears to-day 

But swell to-morrow's tide — at last 

With noiseless suck to gulph all past, 

Together with this patch of borrowed ground- 

A little spool 'pon which is wound 

The thread of life — a living grave 

Unto the soul. With surging wave, 

Then comes the sea with ragged top— 

(Grief's vast storehouse, where drop by drop, 

Sad eyes of man have ever streamed 

The salty brine of life, till teemed 

Are earth's valleys deep with motion, 



86 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Through years' slow process upbuilding the 

ocean), 
And foamy-footed oblivion blots 
All matter. But peace to my thoughts : 
Reluctant now the heart's deep cell, 
Pours that sad and lingering word — farewell ; 
And reverent lades the kindred air, 
With a low — a scarcely whispered prayer, 
That he who sang the tinder of a name, 
Whose breath of scorn has laughed at Fame, 
May beg from Fame a little crust, 
The pale solidified page of dust. 

APOSTROPHE. 

THOU calm and chilled marble — cast from earth's 

unsullied dust, 
In Nature's first mould — man yet unknown — 
Thou art as omnipresent talisman of life — both best 
and worst, 
As chiselled monument — or simple stone. 

1 ask no more — in time — than some slight token of 

thy purity, 
Unhewn — unpolished — rough mined from earth, 
May redeem — for a day at most — from dire dread 
obscurity, 
My name — my death — and my birth. 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES 



TO MY MUSE. 

O HUSH, hush, mine muse, bend closer thine pearly 

ear, 
Encarved from the crystal'd shell of an angel's tear, 
And drink, drink to thine sweet soul the prayer I 

breathe, 
While around my brow the wild woods laurel 

wreathe ; 
It is by thee my heart lies crushed in tenderness, 
Which first thou found a dying, wasting wilderness, 
And by thee 'tis laved in sweetest perspiration, 
Poured from thy vernal springs of inspiration, 
Whose purling, limpid waters, sullied through my 

clay, 
Flow softly o'er my page, in sweetly bitter play. 
O make my words as uncut diamonds, 

Delved from Nature's mint, 
Make my thoughts, waters of wooded by-ponds, 

Reflecting Nature's tint. 
Make my page of forest quivering leaflets, 
Green from Nature's bowers, 



CjO BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Make my ink from heaven's liquid dew-drops, 

Distilled in Nature's flowers. 
Make my pen mine rough and golden nuggets, 

Fresh from Nature's sod, 
Make my lines as wide and open floodgates 
To boundless Nature's God. 
with leafy wreathlets in woven tendrils wind, 
And my every sense in twisted fragrance bind. 
Then breathe thy softest numbers through this floral 

chain, 
And shoot its twining rootlets o'er my burning 

brain ; 
Thus draped in Nature's verdure, wearing her liv- 
ing crown, 
I'd sing her fairest beauties, of valley, heath and 

down, 
Where banks of violets and lakes of water lilies, 
Art's rare paintings paling that deck her richest 

villas, 
Where roses dust their pollen the lily's cheek to 

blush, 
And forests sighing low, echo music from the thrush, 
There I'd cull the simpler beauties from Nature's 

wildest flowers, 
Though loveliest of the lovely were buds of ladies' 
bowers. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 9 1 



THE DOUBLE STROKE, 

WEEP, baby, weep, 
Thy wailings cannot creep 
The stranger's heart around. 

Weep, baby, weep, 
Thy mother now doth sleep, 
In the cold grey ground. 

Sob, baby, sob, 
Death silently did'st rob, 
With mother's love o'ertossed, 
The heart that thou hast lost — 
For thee 'twill never throb, 
Neath lying lily mound, 
Where lily hands are crossed, 
In the cold grey ground. 

Sleep, baby, sleep, 
The tears no longer creep, 
Thy little cheeks adown. 
For the scythe again doth reap, 
And thou with mother sleep, 
In the cold grey ground. 



92 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 



LOVE'S EVERYWHERE. 

BOASTS every youth he'll ne'er enslave, 
His freedom to the treacherous wave 

Love sails upon. 
Laughs every maid in truth or jest, 
Ne'er shall her heart in tenderness, 

By love be won. 
And when they meet some other day, 
Sly Cupid laughs to see the way, 

Love wins anon. 

And thus the urchin's voice is heard, 
Mingled with sighs his art has stirred 

In forms so fair — 
" Regardless of impulsive youth, 
Or soon or late all learn the truth, 

Love's everywhere." 
" Ne'er beat the heart with pulse so faint, 
That Beauty's pencil could not paint 

Love's image there." 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 93 



FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE. 

Or fading at noon or lingering till eve, 

There breaks not a heart but leaves some one to 

grieve ; 
And the fondest, the purest, the truest e'er met, 
Have lived and have loved, to forgive and forget. 

The ivy still lives in brightness arrayed, 
When the oak that it clasps is dead and decayed ; 
More warmly its leaves o'er the fallen are spread, 
Undimmed 'midst the blighted, the lonely and dead. 

But the mistletoe dips its root in the heart 
Of the oak, from which it never will part ; 
To breathe the same air, imbibe the same dew, 
It lives with the oak and dies with it too. 

Though the ivy of friendship more brightly may 

spread, 
When the oak of our time in the distance has fled — 
But oh, for the wreath that never will part, 
The mistletoe lives and dies with the heart. 



94 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 



WOES AND FOES OF THE CLERGY. 

Some think their Pastor's appl'd throat, 
By Adam sent for them to note, 
That creeping sin ean ne'er descend 
Beneath his chin's unwhiskered bend. 
That righteous heart did sudden check, 
The fruit within the isthmus neck — 
Hence free the body, free the head, 
From sins that o'er mere mortals spread. 
Whilst others cry each shaven skin, 
Is safe where Satan packs his sin, 
Nor raise can God a pulpit'-s dais, 
But th' devil is somewhere round the place. 
Thus reverend man hath double woes, 
With fools for friends, and fools for foes, 
Just as some things we common see, 
Both common and uncommon be,* 
'Twere hard for either class to rise, 
To gain respect from candid eyes. 
With dust for bread and gall for drink, 
The worthy shepherd well might think, 
That worth were nought where overstrained, 
And undervalued nought remained. 

* See Note A. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 95 



THE SOUL AND THE KISS. 

KISSES are still, as kisses have been, 
A mystery ever to the wisest men ; 
Their mystic thrill and their magic spell, 
All may feel and none may tell. 

But list ye now, while the Muse relates, 
Of the trembling soul that lingering waits, 
On nectared lips for the time to come, 
When life shall end by another begun. 

As the genial clasp of hand to hand, 
Is to the meeting of man with man, 
So are kisses the angel's toll, 
The mutual greeting of soul to soul. 

Thus it is when lips by lips are pressed, 
A prisoned soul by a soul's caressed — 
'Tis all on earth that earth may know, 
Of raptures spirits o'er spirits throw. 

Our loves die out and our loves recur, 
And time rolls on in its ceaseless roll, 
While kisses are as kisses were, 
The sweetest language of the soul. 



96 BROKEN THOUGHTS, 



IF. 



Loveliest maid with eyes divine, 

Look no longer to the cliff, 
But choose from earth and thus be mine, 
" Yes," she sweetly answered " if" — 
Ah, thou much in little i and f, 
Better to be mute and deaf, 
Ere each hope be blasted with, 
With thy cruel pigmy giant If. 

Bird of Folly is there pleasure, 

In a meerschaum's curling whiff, 
Yields it peace in ample measure, 

" Yes," he laughing answered " if" — 
Ah, thou much in little i and f, 
Better to be mute and deaf, 
Ere each hope be blasted with, 
With thy cruel pigmy giant If. 



Tell me, Age, is there hereafter, 
When the limbs are cold and stiff, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 97 

Wild his eye and harsh his laughter, 
As " yes " slowly answering " if" — 
Ah, thou much in little i and f, 
Better to be mute and deaf, 
Ere each hope be blasted with, 
With thy cruel pigmy giant If. 

And, Christian, say if life is fair, 

Sailing in St. Peter's skiff, 
Can thy religion smother care, 

" Yes," he calmly answered, " if — " 
Ah, thou much in little i and f, 
Better to be mute and deaf, 
Ere each hope be blasted with, 
With thy cruel pigmy giant If. 

If me no ifs,* word me no words, 

When one but tie the others, 
To be bound in Sorrow's records, 
Lost wishes mourning brothers. 

Ah, thou much in little i and f, 
Worse am I than mute and deaf, 
For each hope now lieth with, 
With thy cruel, conquering giant If. 

* See Note B. 



98 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 



MY BOYS. 

A TIRED day has passed away, 
Seeks the sun its golden nest, 

And I my way to walls of grey, 
Enclosing all I love the best. 

Two rosy joys, my laughing boys, 

Loud welcomings I greet ; 
No art employs, nor note or noise, 

So wild, nor yet so sweet. 

Flow on rare lives that pleasure drives, 

In reins of silver and gold, 
I stifle with sighs the thoughts that rise, 

They're far too slight to hold. 

For who can trace on life's young face, 

The lines of care to come ; 
And who can efface from th' older face, 

Those lines when once beeun. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 99 



THE DANCE. 



WHERE laughing 'tween two rosy suns, 
The rosy slippered Pleasure comes, 
In gay dissolving motion fleet, 
The glancing frenzy of the feet — 
There trip, tripping on the toe, 
Dance will we till feathery light — 

Skip, skipping as we go, 
Braids his silver o'er the night. 



Where souls elastic skip the floor, 
Where dance the eyes to eyes before, 
And bounds the heart the step to meet. 
The shiv'ring tattoo of the feet — 
There trip, tripping on the toe, 
Dance will we till feathery light — 

Skip, skipping as we go, 
Braids his silver o'er the night. 



IOO BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Where dimpling ankles in and out, 
Awildering weave the mazy rout, 
And antic viol echoes sweet, 
The merry laughter of the feet — 
There trip, tripping on the toe, 
Dance will we till feathery light — 

Skip, skipping as we go, 
Braids his silver o'er the night. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 10 1 



THE HAWTHORN GROVE* 

In a sighing grove of hawthorn wood 
Breathes the primrose, breathes the violet ; 

In heavy fainting fragrance enamored, 
More closely bending with dew a-wet. 

While just beneath on a moss-wrapt bank, 

That girds a rill of crystalled dew, 
There reclines a pair whose grace may rank 

With all that fancy e'er for poet drew. 

With shadowy, tremulous, liquid light, 
In persuasive feathery rays of love, 

Phcebe sheds her beams of drowsy white, 

O'er flowers and lovers in the hawthorn grove. 

Outlines the youth in listless posture thrown, 

That negligence of symmetry, 
That well-rounded strength not overgrown, 

So pleasing to a maiden's eye. 

* See Note C. 



02 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

The arch of promise rich in all its hues, 
Scarce equals her rare loveliness, 

Who playful strews the moss cups silver dews, 
O'er her lover's tenderness. 



Sigh smothers sigh — the whippoorvvill grieves, 
The night wind returns their mingled echoes, 

While love is deluged in a shower o' leaves, 
That wanton fall from the hawthorn rose. 



When thus speaks the voice of ardent youth, 
In loves own drops of living fire : 

" O thou dearest maid with heart of truth, 
Thy drooping eyes my words inspire." 

" My love for thee — oh, it knows no bounds, 
It fires my brain with many a dart, 

While my crimson blood in rapture bounds, 
To meet thy image within my heart." 

" O but say, dear maid, thou wilt be mine, 
That thy warm heart responsive flows, 

And thou shalt drink to thy soul divine, 
The love I'll pour in deathless vows." 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. I0 3 

More sweetly sounds the whippoorwill's cry, 
Faster fall the hawthorn's flowers, 

More faintly is heard the maiden's sigh, 
As Cynthia gilds her silvery showers. 

'< Sirah, heart of mine can ne'er be won, 
In stormy words of passion spoken; 

Such the waving reed I'd lean upon, 

The reed mewists would soon be broken." 

One moment o'erdulls the moons fond ray 

The tiny cloud so fleecy white 
That hovers o'er— then swift, swift away, 

In vanished distance meets the night. 

-Deep from the springs of gentle purity, 
Grant but one drop of hope be given; 

For oh, my poor heart it leans to thee, 
As leans my soul to heaven." 

" I pray thee, dearest, to calm thy fears, 
Have faith that all things end in time ; 

And if I should live a thousand years, 
I may— I may at last be thine." 



104 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Dies on the gale the whippoorwill's note, 

The rose leaves are borne on the fragrance o' air, 

Love o'er the violet more plainly's wrote, 
As its modesty blends in the primrose fair. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 105 



THE CLOCK UPON THE WALL. 

Tick, tick, tick, never a moment's rest, 

The clock upon the wall ; 
Tick, tick, tick, the heart within my breast, 

That mark'st the moments fall. 

Break, break, break, thy hours into minutes, 

Thou clock upon the wall ; 
Break, break, break, hearts that never win its 

Glad moments as they fall. 

Beat, beat, beat, the reveille of Time, 

Calm clock upon the wall ; 
Beat, beat, beat, sore heart that feeleth mine, 

Sad moments as they fall. 

Grieve, grieve, grieve, in ever mournful notes, 

Sweet clock upon the wall ; 
Grieve, grieve, grieve, mine heart that waiteth votes 

The moments cease to fall. 



I06 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Mark, mark, mark, the time upon thy face, 

Strange clock upon the wall ; 
Mark, mark, mark, mine with deepening trace, 

The wrinkling years that fall. 

Cease, cease, cease, thy never ending stroke, 

Thou clock upon the wall ; 
Cease, cease, cease, scarred heart so often broke 

With moments as they fall. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 10/ 



THOUGH LIPS MAY MEET. 

Tho' lips may meet 

In kisses sweet, 
And part in the kisses' sighs, 

'Tis mystery still, 

Their magic thrill 
In a moment exists and dies. 

Takes only this, 

A glowing kiss, 
To paint love's light on beauty's eyes ; 

And O the joy, 

The sweet employ, 
That in deep seas of coral lies. 

I'd drink my death 

In their balmy breath, 
As drowns the bee in sweet it sips ; 

I'd sink my soul 

In sparkling bowl, 
Whose ruby brim be a maiden's lips. 



108 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

POETS. 

Milton. 

Milton's wisdom flowed so steady in stream, 
In its pools so deep — so grand in its theme — 
So wide spread his thoughts on a plain so high, 
They but seldom reach the uncultured eye ; 
Yet works all else are but pedestal to 
The genius that soared creation's systems through- 
Eden, Hades, Heaven — the Universe, 
Compassed at once in the Niagara of verse, 
That in torrents fell over his soul's vast height, 
Till alone he stands in a halo of light, 
His own archangel 'mong poets to-day, 
To-morrow — through time — forever and aye. 

Byron. 

Byron marked his path by the lightning's course, 
And he tore from the storm the storm's own force, 
As he rode on the whirlwind's fiercest breath, 
And he feared not man, nor devil, nor death ; 
Freed his frenzy of soul on each vivid page, 
As waves lash the rocks in quenching their rage, 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. IO9 

And like the wave when its anger is staid, 
Is whelmed in the foam the lashings have made ; 
Yet light is wafted on the breeze of his thought, 
And as Nature smiles and the smile is caught, 
He speeds on the wings of a daring line, 
That couples his name with the end of time. 

Pope. 

Gliding even as thought in love's first dream, 

Calm floating through time on his own smooth stream 

Pope passes us by while sighing we think, 

The stings and the honey that flowed in his ink ; 

Had his greater work been inlaid in parts, 

With fancy invening for simpler hearts, 

There are many who think, would think the more, 

And some would think, who ne'er did think before. 

While thus in sifting chaff to please their taste, 

Much wheat were gathered else to them were waste; 

Now wisdom lies hidden by wisdom's self, 

While ignorance fattens from a lower shelf. 



*t>' 



Shelley. 

Ne'er soul of poet has drawn a thread more fine. 
Than runs the thread of gold through Shelley's line; 
Yet carved he notch so high on the ladder of fame, 
Dim eyes of earth must spectacle to read his name, 



110 BR OKEN THO UGH TS. 

While angels but glance and point to its merit, 
And in that glance acknowledge a kindred spirit- 
Better had he sung to the lesser minded crowds, 
Than to the soaring few of his azure-tinted clouds ; 
That all might gather from the flower of his thought 
And lose not the essence when the odor was caught. 
Now the spirit lies wrapt in such beauty of words, 
Its path remains darkened to the commoner herds. 

Burns. 

Methinks in Burns were much the wiser part, 
To teach the great and touch the lowly heart, 
Alternate layers of truth in living drops, 
With floods of beauty from Fancy's mountain tops ; 
That the student who'd catch the immortal gleam, 
Can smiling o'erpass the lover's amorous dream, 
While the simple man who loves the rural song, 
May slowly, insensibly, learn right from wrong ; 
And as lessen his cares in the lighter strains, 
Unwarily store his mind with loftier aims. 
Thus to quicken the mind with wisdom's rain, 
Burns o'erdeluged the heart to bathe the brain. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. Ill 



THE FIRST WORD.* 

MURMURING sweet, the baby cooes, 

Papa, papa ; 
From out the west the zephyrs bring 
No sound so light or qua-ver-ing, 
Nor softer music from poet's muse, 
Than babies sing when babies choose, 
Calling, cooing, 
Softly wooing, 
Papa, papa. 

More sweetly sings no bonny bird, 

Birdie, birdie, 
Nor soaring lark was ever heard, 
Nor robin, thrush or bobolink — 
Not even nightingales, I think, 
Have note so tender, soft and true, 
Nor voice that thrills one through and through, 
Calling, cooing, 
Softly wooing, 
Papa, papa. 

* See Note D. 



112 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Life's pressing sorrows have rarely missed, 

Papa, papa ; 
But where are they when baby has kissed 
Their shadowy trace from the tired face, 
That once did sing in the baby's place, 
Calling, cooing, 
Softly wooing, 
The baby's grand- 
papa, papa. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. II 



TO LOTTA. 

LAVE thy lips, O fairy, in limpid dew, 

Of kisses, kisses sweet ; 
Yet rarer, warmer lips I'll kiss from you, 
My Lotta, Lotta sweet. 
Kisses are rare, 

Kisses are sweet, 
Kisses are fair, 
And fair to crreet 
Lovers all the while love may last, 
Love be flown, the kisses are past. 

O the melting, glowing, rapturous thrills 

Of kisses, kisses sweet ; 
Tis a gleam from heaven the kiss she wills, 
My Lotta, Lotta sweet. 
Kisses are rare, 

Kisses are sweet, 
Kisses are fair, 
And fair to greet 
Lovers all the while love may last, 
Love be flown, the kisses are past. 



114 BROKEN THOUGHT?. 

The ruddy gold that lines the lover's dream, 

With kisses, kisses sweet, 
Mingles with molten dew on lips I name, 
My Lotta, Lotta sweet. 
Kisses are rare, 

Kisses are sweet, 
Kisses are fair, 
And fair to greet 
Lovers all the while love may last, 
Love be flown, the kisses are past. 

An angel sighed, and the sigh still lives, 

In kisses, kisses sweet ; 
'Tis wafted to me in the kiss she gives, 
My Lotta, Lotta sweet. 
Kisses are rare, 

Kisses are sweet, 
Kisses are fair, 
And fair to greet 
Lovers all the while love may last, 
Love be flown, the kisses are past. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. 11$ 



MUCH I MARVEL. 

MUCH I marvel 

As I travel, 
Much I ponder 
As I wander, 
O'er the human light and shadow, 

That disproportions life ; 
That each liquid ounce of peace, 
Should have its solid ton o' strife. 

• Much I marvel 
As I travel, 
Much I ponder 
As I wander, 
O'er the human joy and sorrow 

That mingleth through our days ; 
That we look for peace to-morrow 
When to-day more bitter plays. 



Il6 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 

Much I marvel 

As I travel, 
Much I ponder 
As I wander, 
O'er all earthly friends and homage- 
Bitter pondering o'er the why, 
That though a friend a friend may seem, 
Yet misfortune cuts the tie. 

Thus I said 
And said again, 
As 'twere to 
A listening friend ; 
And echo answered in its hollow — 

In its hollow mocking voice, 
" Hours of trouble ever follow, 
Ere a moment peace rejoice." 

Then I called 
And called again, 

As 'twere to 
A truant friend ; 
And the moon looked down in wonder, 

Shrank the stars in closer bond, 
While the clouds were rent asunder, 
And I saw eternal peace beyond. 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. WJ 



EPITAPH. 

SHED, ye Britons, a tear to worth, 

V a here lies Queen of Earth ; 

Who gently lived, as gently died, 

Her Country's hope, and History's pride. 

When passed like snow her soul in death, 
The zephyrs blushed to receive her breath, 
And the Rainbow dipped his arc of light, 
To speed her spirit's upward flight. 



Il8 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 



SHE'S A WORLD OF LOVE 
TO ME. 

In a forest meadow, 

Near a running brook, 
In the shady corner 

Of a leafy nook, 
There my love is sitting, 

Waiting for me now, 
Heart and fingers wreathing, 

Garlands for my brow. 



Her eyes are as the blue 

Ocean rolling deep, 
Her cheek the softening hue, 

Dew of roses steep, 
Her form like the lily, 

Graceful, tall and free — 
Shall I tell you who's a 

World of love to me ? 



BROKEN THOUGHTS. I 1 9 

Softly birds are singing 

Through the forest leaves, 
Nearer bend her blushes 

O'er the garland wreathes ; 
For the notes they're singing, 

From bower, bush and tree, 
Whispering, tell her she's a 

World of love to me. 



120 BROKEN THOUGHTS. 



THE DISMISSAL. 

And now, my Book, I have ye done, 
I send ye out the world upon — 
A world that ne'er will roil ye up, 
As long as ye keep your covers shut ; 
But if ye send your simple sense, 
In search of Praises' recompense, 
Methinks I hear your reader say, 
As he lays ye in the dust away, 
" The dullest book that e'er was writ, 
Thank God, I've found an end to it ! " 



NOTES 



BROKEN THOUGHTS 



Note i. 

E'en as now this line I write is not my last, 

But the time — the time consumed, that time is past. 

At the time of composing; above lines, I had never read a page of 
Young's. I was therefore surprised, upon subsequently obtaining a vol- 
ume of his works, to discover in his " Love of Fame," a couplet with the 
same terminal words and thought akin to mine, viz. : 

" While I a moment name a moment's past, 
I'm nearer death in this verse than the last." 

I was aware, however, in 

Alas ! his grave is dug the day he is born, 
And his cradle is rocked in its awful form. 

I but gave a new dress to an old idea, variously robed by some half-dozen 
different poets. Solomon has told us, " There is no new thing under the 
sun ;'' however true, in a general sense, it certainly attaches to poetry. Yet 
I would not wittingly adopt another's form, although it is beyond the 
bounds of the possible to think, and not tread upon other's thoughts. It 
may be proper to add, that from my readings of English poetry (which have 
been by no means extensive) my memory may have absorbed the sentiment 
— and possibly the words of some familiar quotations, without retaining 
their connection, reflections of which may appear in parts of this poem. If 



122 NOTES. 

so, they will be cheerfully removed, or properly accredited, should a second 
edition be called for. B. 

Note 2. 

From swelling caves of golden throats, 
We hear the pheasant's booming notes. 

The peculiar booming sound produced at sunrise by ruffled grouse 
(commonly termed the prairie chicken), from orange-colored sacks upon 
the sides of the throat, once heard, is not soon to be forgotten. B. 

Note 3. 

Where cavernous cheeks of gophers heap, 
Fresh dug earth from burro wings deep, 
And stop their holes at 'proach of light, 
Self-buried in the loam's black night. 

The gopher — not to be found east of the Mississippi, but immediately 
appearing upon its western bank — is furnished with deep pockets in its 
cheeks, by which it is enabled to convey quantities of earth from its bur- 
rowings to the surface, forming mounds which literally checker the prai- 
ries of Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and other western States. Generally 
working at night, it closes its hole at dawn of day, that its sleep may be 
undisturbed by insects, reptiles, etc. B. 

Note 4. 

Where the resin weed in lofty pride, 
High bears the wildered traveller's guide, 
In pointed leaves on graceful stem, 
Circled with many a milk-white gem. 

This plant derives its common name from a pure white resinous sub- 
stance that collects in crystallized lumps upon its stem, the gummy 
qualities of which, combined with its color, succeed in making it the school- 
boy's treasure. Attaining a height upwards of six feet, it serves the birds, 
especially the meadow lark and bobolink, with perches, in lieu of the 
bushes and trees of timbered regions. It is also singularly furnished with 



NOTES. 123 

long serrated leaves, which invariably point north and south, answering 
as a species of nature's compass to the benighted traveller on sparsely 
settled prairies. B. 

Note 5. 

Go thou, then, and scan the undulating waves, 
That toss the calm of Greenwood's Hill of graves. 

In New York's great city of the dead, there is a hill devoted to the 
public, containing some ten acres, known as the Hill of Graves ; and, as 
might be inferred, its rows of closely-packed graves, are without other 
monument than the simple slab. Coming suddenly upon it, the eye is at 
once arrested, the mind subdued, the senses rapt in awe — impressed with a 
certain majesty of grandeur, that the surrounding mausoleums and monu- 
ments have sought in vain to produce. First viewed from an adjacent 
eminence, it suggests a sea of troubled waves, that, by some inscrutable 
power, has been frozen to a calm in the midst of its tossings. B. 

Note 6. 

Where sleeps the man with blood so slow, 
That 'twill not burn with warmer glow, 
Wild course the veins' keen shivering flow, 
When love's the wave. 

" Breathes there the man with soul so dead, 
That never to himself hath said, 
This is my own, my native land." — Scott. 

B. 
Note 7. 

Ten thousand lives a hero make, 
And one unto the gallows take. 

It is finely said by some one (I have forgotten whom), 

" One murder made a villain, 
Millions a hero." 



124 NOTES. 

Note 8. 

While God and heaven they stout deny, 
An inward something gives the lie. 

While I think it possible, that occasionally, there may be a scoffer of his 
God and his own eternity, whose sentiments may be sincere, yet unques- 
tionably, even with these mental monstrosities, there is an innate some- 
thing — an instinct, if we may so call it, that points to a future existence, a 
supreme intelligence, an all-pervading, an all-guiding power — a God. 

When the religion of the age in which they may live requires them to 
believe more than their reason can receive, they turn against it, denying 
the fundamental principles as well as the auxiliary nothings which attend 
it. While this failure to discriminate must necessarily cause many to be 
honestly mistaken, and to cry out against the entire fabric, yet as regards 
the essence of the question, the cry is forced, and antagonistic to their 
better and natural feelings. 

I am therefore led to believe that the scoffer's argument, as a rule, is for 
effect and display ; that his words are the mere froth and not the substance 
of his brain ; that he revels in the delusion that himself, and not his sub- 
ject, is the thing of importance — in fact, a caricature in life, a fly on the 
back of an elephant— the elephant is there, but the fly has forgotten it. 

B. 

Note 9. 

The gay delirium of a dream, 
Termed poetry. 

" And the poet's hand, 
Imparting substance to an empty shade, 
Imposed a gay delirium for a truth." — Cowper. 



NOTES 



MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. 



Note A. 

As some things we common see, 
Both common and uncommon be. 



There are names that are both common and uncommon. For exam- 
ple, no name is more common than that of Smith, and yet but few names 
are more uncommonly met with among the annals of great men. 

Should I have a daughter, and she desired to marry a Smith, and 
Smith desired to marry my daughter, my consent should be conditional, 
that should a son be born unto them, the son should be added to the 
name, thereby forming Smithson, that when one of their posterity 
should be met with, although in the halls of a penitentiary, the "Good- 
morning, Mr. Smithson," would at once fill the mind with pleasing asso- 
ciations of greatness. 

I do not write from any desire to detract from the name of Smith — that 
would be presumptuous folly — nor anticipating so many as one Smith 
will be pricked into an- effort to ennoble that which, save oblivion, nothing 
is so familiar to the graveyard slab, but rather with the conviction that 
many thousands of Smiths will at once add sons to their names. 

That I speak in a spirit of good feeling, and without malice, I will but 
add that I can conceive of nothing that boxes the ear with more flatness, 
than the much worn but seldom printed name of Smith. B. 



126 NOTES. 

Note B. 
'* If me no ifs." — Wordsworth. B. 

Note C. 

The violet, primrose, and hawthorn, emblematic of Faith, Inconstancy, 
and Hope. B. 

Note D. 

" The First Word." 

The words of this little piece are mostly mine. Some few, however, 
are retained, and the sentiment taken from a trifle bearing the same title, 
found — designated as anonymous — in a collection of poetry. The same 
is also true of Friendship and Love. B. 



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